I agree completely. I think he's ****. The problem we have with Big Sam (or Dyche if you're jammy) is that you need a big man up top. Our squad isn't built for a big man up top. It's built around a high energy press and quick nimble wingers coming in off the wings. Now we need a big man and don't have one. The nearest thing we have to a big man out of all our forwards is Bamford. Ridrigo gets outmuscled far easier and Gnonto is too small. Rutter doesn't look the answer either. So as **** as he is, we are stuck with Bamford and that's it.
Well IMO regardless of how we play, if he plays the next two games I'm afraid it's Championship for us next season.
Shaks, at least you are calling that before the event rather than trying to be clever after - fair play to you Mind, I desperately hope you are wrong, he shins one early doors Sunday and suddenly bags 4 in two games - that is just as possible with Bamford.
A good read I thought Somewhere in Marcelo Bielsa’s possessions is an England shirt signed by Patrick Bamford. Irrespective of whether it is an England shirt or the England shirt — the actual match-worn top from Bamford’s one international appearance — it is a memento of a time when both of them seemed to have no ceiling. ADVERTISEMENT Bamford gave Bielsa that shirt because the Argentinian’s football had taken him to the threshold of England recognition. Bielsa saw acknowledgement from Gareth Southgate as solely Bamford’s doing and said more than once that Leeds United would not have been the team they were without him up front. There has hardly been a coach with more faith in Bamford, even if it came to look as if the forward’s body could only take so much of the Bielsa way. That, sadly, is the image of him now: a footballer who once led the line for an esteemed thinker who would stoically stand by him, reduced to the level of trying to show that he has some of the old fibre left. It is not that Bamford was never prone to missing chances. Anyone with any knowledge of Leeds can reel off names of goalscorers before him at the club who were more prolifically reliable and comparatively deadly but, whatever his limitations, the truth of Bielsa’s side at its best was that it worked with Bamford in it. And if you asked Bielsa, it worked because Bamford was in it. That was why Eddie Nketiahcould not get much of a kick during what was meant to be a full season on loan, why the young forward extricated himself from Elland Road in January 2020 and went home to Arsenalahead of time. The truth of it, also, is that Bamford was worth a go with England, for all that he was only able to dip his toe into those waters. But that was then and this is no longer then. The current image of him is quite uncomfortable to watch; Bamford changed and not for the better, big moments counting against him and his club, influence waning and abuse rising from fools who need parental controls imposed on their mobiles and their lives. And all the while the thought that he is indicative of what Leeds have become, a victim of flawed ideas which left him and others painfully exposed. ADVERTISEMENT This is the second season running in which Bamford had been grasping for form, fitness and goals. And yet, as it draws to an end with everything on the line, he is playing up front and Leeds are counting on him doing what he hasn’t really done dependably since 2021. Three years on from promotion and Leeds’ go-to option at centre-forward is still the same bloke it was then, despite the fact injuries consumed him in Bielsa’s curtailed final season and have not let up completely in this one either; despite the fact Leeds have been going backwards from the summer of 2021 onwards. Might the pecking order not have evolved in that time? The same point could be made about Adam Forshaw, a midfielder new head coach Sam Allardyce clearly rates and would probably use in every remaining minute this season if he could. But Allardyce’s preferred pick is one who, because of drawn-out injuries going back a long time, was too much of a risk to start against Newcastle on Saturday so only played the second half. “It’s a delicate play with Adam,” Allardyce admitted, and it is amazing how a brand new coach can sound like a stuck record. Forshaw’s is a perennially managed situation, never fully solving itself. please log in to view this image GO DEEPER After more than 700 days without playing a league match, this is why Leeds missed Forshaw Thinking about what Bamford or Forshaw would be if the world was perfect is fine — Bielsa genuinely reckoned a prime, unhindered Forshaw was Champions League material — but no competent club, or no club in good shape, gets into a position where it looks at players who have felt the strain individually for longer than is good for them and relies on them as if they were safe bets. It is like clinging to ideals which do not exist. Bamford’s missed penalty in that draw with Newcastle was costly, and Rodrigo should have taken it. In the circumstances and on the merits of their respective form, the percentage play was to give it to the forward who had been in the habit of scoring. But even Rodrigo’s starting position at the weekend, wider in a front three, told a story, as did another afternoon of nothing from £35million ($42.6m) January signing Georginio Rutter on the bench. How is it that after all that has gone on, for Bamford and the club, so much in attack is still resting on him? It is hard not to deduce that two years of physical issues have stripped the now 29-year-old of the ability to do what he did for Bielsa to the same standard: to run the channels in the same way, to provide as much of a focal point, to get on the end of so many chances (which, in fairness, Leeds no longer create at the same rate anyway). And if confidence is diminished then he is probably no different to Illan Meslier: self-assurance weakened by numbers and performances which mount up negatively. Perhaps Saturday’s penalty was a demonstration of where Bamford is psychologically. Perhaps somebody on the pitch should have saved him from himself. Perhaps Leeds truly need this wake-up call. History should reflect that Bamford was good for Leeds. He scored 16 goals in 2019-20 as they went up, then 17 in their first season after promotion and, to this point, he has a combined total of 66 goals and assists for them in league games. It might not be record-breaking but they are tidy numbers and there was a time when Leeds were grateful for them, however much anyone tried to beat him over the head with expected-goals ratios. please log in to view this image Bielsa saw Bamford as key to his team (Photo: Pat Scaasi/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images) By far the saddest aspect of the Bielsa era is the way it petered out: a manager gone before the crowd was ready to lose him, a fear factor replaced by the knowledge that Leeds have big chinks in their armour, the faces of that brilliant 2019-20 squad struggling to stop time catching up on them. Relegation can be avoided by something as simple as the conversion of a penalty and a Premier League No 9 has to score in those moments. But clubs do not go down because a single penalty was missed. Clubs go down because they were inept enough to have so much staked on solitary kicks from 12 yards. In September, Bamford will reach the two-year anniversary of what will surely be his only England cap, a goalless hour against Andorra in a 4-0 World Cup qualifying cruise at Wembley. It remains an example of what can be done and of how much he, Bielsa and Leeds achieved together. It would be nice if, in time, he was largely regarded as the centre-forward who helped get Leeds promoted and who helped break that ceiling. As it is, the scrutiny on him is symptomatic of the club’s inability to move forward properly from there. (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
I know you could be right, but I doubt it. I think his confidence is shot. I hope I'm wrong and he wins the last two games for us.
Your all too hard on Bamford,he missed one easy goal against Leicester and a pen,it happens sometimes.
In my view there are two undeniable facts about bamford. 1.Under bielsa, the side always played better with him in it. 2. He has never been a reliable/consistent goal scorer That was always the conundrum. His regular missed sitters were an issue in the championship. Even that first year in the Prem, it was actually a really good half a season, not a full one. And possibly helped by lack of crowds. He’s obviously a confidence player and streaky. My view is he often scores the difficult chances and misses the easy ones. Ie the ones he knows he should/is expected to score. He probably over thinks it.
Maybe then someone should have thought of scouting a player who had Bamford's best attributes that helped the Bielsa team and also could finish like a striker should. Isn't that what our dof and his famous network of scouts worldwide were being paid to do. surely
