Danny Mills does not believe that Patrick Bamford is good enough to play for England, despite scoring 12 goals for Leeds United in the Premier League this season.
Bamford's ability to step up to the top division was questioned before the campaign began, but the 27-year-old has proven his doubters wrong and flourished as the spearhead of Marcelo Bielsa's attacking unit.
Only five men have scored more goals in the league this season, while Harry Kane and Dominic Calvert-Lewin are the only English players to have netted more than Bamford.
However, Mills believes that Bamford would struggle to replicate Kane's presence as England's leading centre-forward, highlighting his wasteful finishing as a serious problem when he is not playing in a team as creative as Leeds.
"Patrick Bamford has had an exceptional season but I was listening to Dean Ashton who did a really good comparison on him," he told Football Insider.
"He said Leeds create as many chances as the top six because of the way that they play. Actually, when you look at the stats, Bamford has missed 14 or 15 goalscoring chances this season. Harry Kane has missed six. That’s a huge difference, that’s eight or nine goals.
"That’s probably the case with a lot of Leeds players. But what Patrick Bamford does is play in a unique way which works for Leeds. So could he play for England? No, because England aren’t going to play that way.
"It’s the same with all the Leeds players. Maybe they wouldn’t get into a lot of other teams.
"It’s because they play as a collective. It’s brilliant, it’s high-tempo, it works, it’s exciting. They all know their job.
"If you take them out of that Leeds team, they probably become different players."
Previously, Bamford admitted that he still has "four or five strikers" to compete with to earn a spot in Gareth Southgate's England team.
"If you had said that at the start of the season, I would have brushed it off and said you’re mad," he told Sky Sports about the possibility of being named in Southgate's squad next month after he scored in a 2-0 win over Crystal Palace on Monday.
"But now, people talk about it and it’s good if you’re getting talked about.
"There’s four of five strikers who’ve not really been involved with England a lot of times and they’re all doing really well.
"I think it's going to be interesting to see who does get called up and, to be honest, if I do or if I don't, I know I've done my best and I think whoever does get called up fully deserves it, whether it's me or any of the others."
