Patrick Bamford has given his thoughts on Leeds United’s brilliant 3-2 victory over Millwall.
Speaking with LUTV on the pitch shortly just minutes after the final whistle, the striker reflected on United’s spirit and his own role in the match, scoring the first and third goals of their memorable second-half comeback.
Two goals behind at the break, the striker got Leeds back into the game in the 48th minute, in the right place at the right time to tap-in Bartosz Bialkowski’s parried save following a Jack Harrison effort.
Less than 15 minutes later he put Leeds ahead, heading Luke Ayling’s cross into the net with a well-placed header.
“We said before the game that we need to keep a clean sheet, score first, and obviously did the complete opposite,” he said. “We struggled a little bit at set pieces.
“But we never gave up, we knew even at 2-0 down, first half we were the better team I think. We knew if we kept going and got the first goal in the second half, we’d win and we did it.
“Don’t panic, we know how good we can be and we know that we’ve come back in those situations before. So whilst we were dominating we thought stick with it, get the first goal and we’ll win the game.”
Bamford is now up to 12 goals for the season but has faced increased scrutiny in recent weeks, having missed a penalty in the 1-0 defeat to Queens Park Rangers and a number of missed chances in a five-match goalless streak, having gone ten without scoring earlier in the season.
He’s been the only option up top for Marcelo Bielsa following Arsenal recalling Eddie Nketiah on New Year’s Day, but he’ll face competition from new recruit Jean-Kevin Augustin going forward, with the RB Leipzig loanee expected to make the bench in Saturday’s match against Wigan.
“It’s nice to score, I mean, I could say a lot but I’m just happy to score,” he added mischievously, perhaps referencing his hands-on-ears celebration after facing criticism of late.
“It’s not nice being 2-0 down, but to come back from it is pretty special and we’ve shown we can do that quite a lot.
“Hopefully we don’t have to do that too many more times but it’s a good three points.”
