Bamford keen to break ‘vicious circle’. Patrick Bamford listens politely, considers the argument, then shakes his head. “I think my injuries have just been bad luck,” he says. “I don’t think it was too intense with Marcelo Bielsa.”
There is a view that the much-adored former Leeds manager finally broke the team’s outstanding striker, but Bamford disagrees. “There were times when it was difficult with Marcelo,” admits the 30-year-old as he races against the clock to recover from a minor knee problem in time to return to Daniel Farke’s team for Sunday’s championship playoff final. against Southampton. “But honestly, it was probably the best three and a half years I’ve ever had in football. Bamford keen to break
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“My problems were partly because, in trying to help the team, I pushed too hard, came back too soon and kept having setbacks. It was a vicious circle. I was going around and around and getting nowhere. In the end, that backfired and I had a really tough two years.”
Three years ago, Bamford scored 17 goals in 38 Premier League appearances and won one England cap, but then came those two injury-plagued seasons. Weakened by the absence of a striker as important off and on the ball, a suddenly struggling Leeds asked Jesse Marsch, Javi Gracia and Sam Allardyce to take turns in Bielsa’s old seat, but still landed in the Championship last spring .
Farke’s appointment changed the narrative but, despite a finally resurgent Bamford scoring nine goals in 19 games before suffering kneecap trauma during last month’s 4-3 win at Middlesbrough, they narrowly missed out on promotion automatic.
As Bamford chats amiably amid the deceptive tranquility of the club’s training ground set in the middle of gently rolling countryside near Wetherby, he relives the frustration of finishing somehow behind Leicester and Ipswich, despite amassing 90 points.
“Fortunately, Daniel Farke is a very sensible person and an experienced manager,” he says. “He stayed calm, we understood and now I hope Wembley is a fantastic experience. “I think the Premier League would definitely be better with Leeds in it.”
Although Joël Piroe impressed as a centre-forward in the play-off semi-final against Norwich and is a very decent finisher, he cannot match the Bamford defender’s bewildering movement out of possession.
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“When I was playing for Nottingham Forest Under-18s, I always remember the academy director saying, ‘Focus on your movements, on getting behind,'” says the former Chelsea and Middlesbrough striker. “That really stuck with me and I learned a lot from watching Edinson Cavani from his days at Napoli onwards. Bamford keen to break
“But pressing from the front was one of the things that Bielsa brought out in me. In training, it was all about changing tempo quickly and how quickly you could go from zero to top speed. Being tall is more difficult and without Marcelo pushing me I probably wouldn’t have worked on it.
“Even now people still think I’m slow. My running style is terrible but I’m deceptively fast. “I don’t think many defenders surpass me by 30 or 40 meters.” Bamford keen to break
Some Leeds fans have never properly appreciated how good Bamford is and things reached a nadir when a group turned up outside the house he shares with his partner and young children to complain about a missed penalty last season.
“There’s only so much you can take before you snap and for me that’s when it started to involve my family,” he says. “I know it’s a small minority, but sometimes it’s the little voices that shout the loudest. Social media has brought many good things, but people can be blind to its consequences. They don’t see the pain and damage. Bamford keen to break
“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been here for six years and I still enjoy it. The vast majority of fans are fantastic. “I hope to show you my best form in the Premier League next season.”Bamford keen to break
The top flight would be reinforced by the presence of a striker willing to highlight, among other issues, the climate emergency and racism. “I want to raise awareness about the need to take care of the planet,” he says as we talk about the “madness” of Newcastle and Tottenham flying to Australia for a post-season friendly. “He needs our help. But there are many things, not just environmental, that I have talked about. If something is wrong, I will tell it like it is.”
Bamford’s amalgam of articulate candor, intelligence and, despite a healthy inner confidence, humility, makes it easy to understand why he was offered a Harvard scholarship after leaving private school in Nottingham with not only a series of GSCEs and A-levels but also fluent in French. and a real aptitude for playing the violin.
During his early days on a series of loans from Chelsea, this did not always serve the middle-class architect’s son well, leading to clashes with certain senior school administrators. Maybe he was too blunt?
“Potentially,” says a striker who remains so close to Aitor Karanka that he routinely gives his former Boro coach “a big hug” whenever they meet. “It caused me problems with some managers. At times I may have seemed cocky or arrogant. I wasn’t, it was just that if I saw something was wrong, I would talk about it anyway.
“It didn’t always put me in the best position, but sometimes people want to talk and don’t because they think they’re going to be reprimanded. “I don’t think that’s really the right thing to do.”