Patrick Bamford reflects on move into Leeds United's midfield and delivers honest verdict of Liverpool clash - YEP 13/9/21
Patrick Bamford pulled no punches in his assessment of Sunday's Premier League clash against Liverpool - in which the Whites no 9 ended up in midfield.
By Lee Sobot
Marcelo Bielsa's Whites were looking to record their first
league victory of the new season but fell to a 3-0 reverse at Elland Road as Mo
Salah, Fabinho and Sadio Mane all bagged a goal apiece.
Leeds had to play the final 30 minutes of the contest with
ten men after Pascal Struijk was eventually shown a straight red card for a
challenge on Harvey Elliott.
Struijk won the ball but accidentally caught Elliott on the
follow through and the Reds teenager was left nursing a serious ankle injury.
As part of a tactical reshuffle, Bamford has revealed that
Bielsa then pulled both himself and Tyler Roberts into a three-man midfield.
"It was tough to be honest," said Bamford,
assessing the Reds clash on Match Of The Day 2.
"It was one of them where as soon as we got the red
card I actually dropped into the midfield three so me and Tyler were playing
like two eights really.
"And then it was like stick with Fabinho and try and
get forward when we get the chance and get the ball back but don't jump too
much on to the centre backs because obviously it leaves the midfield free.
"That can be frustrating because you are just following
a guy around and they have still got the ball comfortably.
"It was tough. It was hard because I don't think we
gave a really good account of ourselves.
"In the first half when we had 11 men we were a little
bit sloppy.
"We gave the ball away under less pressure than we
should have which was frustrating but it made things a little bit
difficult."
Assessing the incident which led to Elliott being
stretchered off, Bamford reasoned: "It was one of those unfortunate
things, just the follow through of the tackle.
"It was an innocuous challenge really and I think his
ankle has just got caught under the weight of Pascal and I know Pascal is
really sorry about it.
"We send our thoughts to Harvey.
"Pascal was just confused because obviously he thought
he had won the ball and he didn't realise what has happened until afterwards.
"There's obviously a big kerfuffle on the pitch and everybody
is thinking what is going on.