When a team loses 24 of 35 games, conceding 85 goals in the process, it’s never going to be easy to stand out. It’s even more difficult in the case of a defender and even more so when it’s a defender in only his second full season of first-team football. Yet that is the case of Elvis Bwomono at Southend United in League One.
The club’s player of the month for six consecutive months until his fellow young full-back Tom Clifford won the award in February, Bwomono has excelled since being given his debut at the club under Phil Brown. Since then, Bwomono has worked under both Chris Powell and Kevin Bond, more renowned for their careers as coaches rather than managers, before former Arsenal and Tottenham ace Sol Campbell took over at Roots Hall.
This scout report will provide a tactical analysis of Bwomono’s game in the EFL which has caught the eye of numerous League One and Championship clubs with rumours of interest in January. The club has already acted to extend his contract until the summer of 2021, but Bwomono may well be reluctant to drop into League Two after being the club’s best performer by some distance. This analysis will consider the tactics of his game.
His role
Primarily, he operates as a right-back ever since he has broken into the team. In this role, he brings great strength to the team in an offensive sense and spends much of his time on the ball bombing down the wing.
However, when not on the ball himself, he will tend to stick to a defensive role and is not regularly seen at the far post. In this sense, he is a fairly disciplined defender in terms of his positioning. Even when getting forward, it is fairly rare to see him reach the byline, instead preferring to deliver a pass as he enters the final third, rather than going the full distance himself.
This is reflected in his heatmap that shows how by primarily positioning himself in his own half, he can be found getting forward and attacking opposition defences regularly. This provides a strong blend of offensive flair with defensive reliability.
One of his strengths is that he is a very flexible player. With Cyprus captain Jason Demetriou for competition and cover, Campbell has not hesitated to use Bwomono elsewhere in either a more advanced position on the right as a wing-back or even midfielder, or on the right of a three-man central defence. As this graph shows, right-back remains his primary position and accounts for over half of his minutes played.
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