Sorry mate winning is great but not being able to rely on our most highly paid player to do his job is all wrong. How many assists has he given us? None…. So it’s like playing with 10 men. Rodrigo on the other hand has done Bamfords job and sits just behind Haaland and Kane in the scoring table. Bamford does a bit of hold up play, does a bit of chasing back and defending from the front….. meeeeh sorry not good enough for me and if it were not for Rodrigo we would be bottom of the league
Bamford has 4 goals & 4 assists in 24 games this season. Rodrigo has 13 goals & 2 assists in 26 games (no idea if this refers to starts or simple appearances. I suspect the latter). Only Harrison has more assists, with 9. Both players are completely different in their approach & capabilities. Rodrigo tackling back or holding up play comes nowhere near the Bamford's performance levels. Bamford has gone from rightly being criticised for not taking enough chances, to being villified for everything from sneezing without a handkerchief or not farting enough. It's ridiculous. It's even his fault that he got injured if you believe everything you read. Bamford seems to bring out the meltdown child in so many 'supporters'.
My issue with Bamford is that he isn't prolific enough. The chances he has had whilst at Leeds are innumerable and he should have scored twice as many as he has. That's all good by the way as that's what you get for a 7 million championship striker. At the level we operate at now, working hard, tracking back, being a nuisance etc just doesn't cut it. We need a natural goalscorer. None of our forward players are natural goalscorers. Bamford, with his goalscoring record and now his injury record AND his age and value at this point is the easy option to upgrade.
Whilst I agree with all that. Natural goal scorers are not easy to find or cheap to buy. We’ve just spent 35 million on a “prospect” so 4x the price of Bamford but not good enough to get in ahead of him.
Absolutely agree. That doesn't mean we should just settle for a striker that doesn't score goals though. We must strive to improve our finishing as its been poor for the last 5 years or so. Getting someone in who can score goals at this level is intrinsic to our improvement. We might have made mistakes in the past but that doesn't mean we should just give up on trying to find that player who can fire us up the league.
Again completely agree with you. But I think we have tried. We bought Rodrigo who I guess most saw as his replacement. We then bought Gelhardt, Perkins, Joseph and Georgina that we thought would progress to the first team. Unfortunately none of them have been able to replace him so far. Every coach we’ve had seems to think he is the best option.
We settled for the Bamford misses due to “the other stuff” he did in the team, in a Bielsa team he was vital, now he’s really no better than a Tyler Roberts. If we’re sticking with Gracia or we’re not going to employ a Bielsa v 2.0 then Bamford has to go whilst we can get some money for him. The huge problem is £5m can get you a Gnonto, £35m a Rutter (who just needs time I know), but it’s hard finding affordable quality. Bamford is currently just making up the numbers Jack is very hot and cold but I’d prefer a new contract over selling off cheap, I guess that means James is definitely going to be off.
In terms of league games Bamford has 21 games played and just 2 goals and 2 assists and I believe it’s his worst ever period in front of goal. On the plus side he has found himself in the right position at the right time so his instincts are still good, but the downside is he fumbles them. georginio will hopefully get some game time soon even if played out wide because his skills can be devastating and it can’t be long before he scores.
If we stay up. times up for all the old guard for me. nothing personal just time moves on or at very least be told they aren't starting 11 players. I thank every one of them for their contribution but the club is bigger than being loyal to players who don't have it anymore.. If Paddy had Rodri attributes and Rodri had Bammers attributes we would have a very good player. ones a better team player off the ball and the other is the finisher. We can't keep them all but scoring goals is a very hard thing to find. Rodri is the only one doing it even though I think Paddy is a better player. Another season of struggle tells you the squad is still a long way from being a stable Prem club. The club say we are nearly there on a squad front I personally think we are very far from that. As on Doc's Post Joseph isn't ready and still won't be next season. Gelhardt we have a big decision to make. Rutter has something but we need to see alot more. Bamford on the decline cash in. Rodri is a finisher and needs to stay till we find that goalscoring gem.
On the striker front there have been countless stories about Mateo Retrgui agents been in touch with Orta and various clubs around Europe. He is in Argentina at the moment and so far this season has scored 7 goals from only 9 games. Last season he scored 22 from 40 games. He has chosen to play for Italy and Mancini has selected him a couple of times to play and he even scored against England a couple of weeks ago. He is also a team mate of Gnonto. Hes another kid but a huge future and his value only a few months ago was £3m now in a bidding war it could be way more than that, but this is the sort of goalscorer we need, some kid on his way up and that’s why we really need Georginio to take his chance and go big
Nail on the head. Goal scorers are hard to find. Look at Chelsea, they spent £600 million this season and have one of lowest amount of goals in the league, ahead of only Palace and Wolves.
Well the media are not too impressed with Paddy so it’s not just me…. ……..“Indeed, there will be no room for complacency as they still have to face a number of their relegation rivals including West Ham United, Bournemouth and Leicester City after hosting the Eagles at Elland Road tomorrow. One player who hasn't been pulling his weight for some time is striker Patrick Bamford and now that a number of attacking players like Wilfried Gnonto, Luis Sinisterra and Rodrigo are back from injury”……..
My plan for the forwards for next season would be.... Buy Gyokeres (Coventry striker). Keep Rodrigo. Keep Georginio. Keep Gnonto. Keep Sinisterra. Sell Bamford. Loan out Gelhardt. Loan out Joseph. Loan out Greenwood.
Quite a few of Leicesters players would excel under the narrow system under Marsch. It's a squad far more suited to red bull ball than our lot.
