Patrick Bamford has been the source of prolonged debate since Leeds United were promoted to the Premier League earlier this year.
Marcelo Bielsa finally delivered what all Leeds supporters had dreamt of since being relegated to the Championship back in 2004. As Bamford and many other Leeds players will know, though, those sentiments don’t last long in professional football.
Bamford will know better than anyone just how ruthless the Premier League can be in comparison to lower division in English football. He had scored just one goal in the top flight across spells with four different clubs - Norwich City, Middlesbrough, Burnley and Crystal Palace respectively.
Therefore, some of the doubts over whether he can cut it in the Premier League this time around were partly justified given his previous record in the top flight.
However, much of the negativity around Bamford’s ability to lead the line for Leeds this season has overlooked his importance to Bielsa’s system from a tactical point of view. The 27-year-old provides constant work rate from the front which sets Leeds’ pressing at a ruthless level compared to other sides.
While strikers are ultimately judged on how many times they hit the back of the net during a campaign, Bamford offers far more than just goals to Leeds’ system - so much so that he started ahead of new signing Rodrigo on Saturday at Anfield. Bielsa’s decision to stick with a relatively familiar line-up allowed the Whites to control parts of the game on Merseyside despite coming up short in the final few minutes.
Nevertheless, the innate striker mentality inside Bamford should be secretly pleased to have got off the mark on the opening day of the new Premier League season. There will be enough underlying narratives throughout a hectic 2020/21 campaign and ridding the ‘when will Bamford score?’ one early on will hand everyone connected with the club a great sigh of relief.
The nature of his goal in the 30th minute provided an interesting talking point, too, and not least because it included a rare mistake from Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk. His attempted clearance was duly swept up by Bamford who calmly slotted past Alisson Becker to make it 2-2.
Despite van Dijk’s mistake clearing gifting the Leeds striker an easy finish, it was just reward for Bamford’s tireless work ethic to continue closing down the opposition at every given opportunity.
As Bamford and other Leeds players outlined after the game, there are ambitions to build on Saturday’s performance at Anfield which will eventually see them pick up their first points of the Premier League season.
For the 27-year-old, though, he will be delighted to have got the monkey off his back so early in the campaign.
