South Shields boss Kevin Phillips is delighted to have secured the loan signing of Sunderland's Harry Gardiner for the final six games of the season. Shields are 13 points clear at the top of the Northern Premier League and are closing in on promotion to the National League North after a turbulent few seasons.
Gardiner, still only 19-years-old, has been a regular goalscorer for Graeme Murty's Sunderland U21s in Premier League 2 Division 2 and will get his first taste of senior football under his belt.
Phillips told South Shields: "We’re delighted to have signed Harry for the final six games of the season. We’re very grateful to Sunderland for allowing him to join us on loan, and I’m sure it will be a great experience for him in men’s football after his progress with the Under-23s.
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“It will be a challenge for Harry, but he brings lots of qualities to our squad and hopefully goals, too. He’s the type of striker who loves to run in behind and is a typical fox in the box with good movement.
“I’m excited to work with him and pleased to add some extra competition to the squad for the final six games. We’ve had a long, hard season and there is a bit of fatigue and tiredness among the players, so to be able to add a fresh pair of legs to challenge the others is very beneficial.”
Gardiner bagged a brace against Stoke City in the Black Cats most recent home game, which was originally down a hattrick but chalked off with the defender scoring an own goal. It was an impressive display from the youngster which saw some calls from supporters to include in him Tony Mowbray's first-team given their lack of goals.
When asked how close he thinks Gardiner is to the first team, Murty added: “All he has to do is make sure that when he gets in front of the gaffer’s eyes, he does his level best to make a striking impression. That’s all we say to the players that when you get in front of the manager, when you can get in front of the technical director, make sure they walk away talking about you.
“He’s scored two goals so I don’t think he’s done a bad job.”
However, Mowbray was not willing to fast track the youngster into the first-team set-up. The Black Cats boss previously said: "I think Harry has only trained once or twice with us, if that.
"We train at the same time on the same site, I don't get the opportunity to go and watch the U18s or the U21s training on a regular basis, so it would be like me just bringing up a young kid because he has scored a couple of goals, putting him in the team and then if he doesn't get a kick, if he gets bashed about and it looks like a boy against men, everyone will wonder 'what's he [Mowbray] doing?'. You have to get a feel for it.
"Just because he scored a few goals against what might have been a Stoke team made up of 18-year-olds ... you have to be careful. I understand the potential knee-jerk reaction towards a guy who has scored a few goals against Stoke's U21s - get him in the first team, he must be good - but that's not always the case.
"That's not being negative towards the young guy because it's great that he scored those goals - I was at the game and he got himself into the six-yard box and scored. Yet we had Pierre [Ekwah] playing, we had Isaac [Lihadji] playing, we had Abdoullah [Ba] playing, we had Jewi [Jewison Bennette] playing, so we had some players out there who have been around the first-team, playing against some kids from Stoke and they probably gave us the edge in the football match with the young boy up front scoring the goals that they created.
"Yet we wouldn't sit here and think that we are going to put those four lads straight into the team, they have to be integrated bit by bit and it's the same with young Gardiner. If he proves to be good enough in the long term, and he trains with the first team, then maybe so.
"I haven't seen the young man [Gardiner] since that game. He hasn't been up training with us, he's part of that development programme that the club is trying to push hard.
"We know there is some young talent coming through, the likes of Chris Rigg who also played against Stoke U21s and did very well. You have to be careful about just throwing them in, so we will generally stick with the group we've got."
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