Patrick Bamford injury scare should encourage Leeds to buy a striker - The Athletic 14/8/22

By Phil Hay

Patrick Bamford’s big dream is proof that at least one player with a dog in the fight appreciates the timing of a winter World Cup.

If held in the traditional June and July slot, the 2022 tournament would not have given him a chance, but Qatar in November and December is sticking in his head, the flicker of possibility and ambition.

What chance he really has is another thing altogether, and it does not take much knowledge of international selection policies to realise that in grasping for one of the 26 places in the England squad he is trying to complete a Hail Mary throw with Gareth Southgate a distant figure 70 yards down the field.

More than anything, it is a basic matter of numbers: three competitive starts in 11 months, one competitive goal in eight, a solitary cap won over a year ago and now, another niggle. The sad fact is that since Southgate welcomed Bamford into the England fold, the striker has barely yielded a data set for his staff to analyse.

He can see that himself and when a conversation with The Athletic last week turned to the World Cup, Bamford’s response was to say that his mind was preoccupied with the thought of “where’s my next goal coming from” — the mantra of centre-forwards the world over. The last time he’d played away at Southampton before yesterday, he was knocking on the door of 20 of them for the season. Southgate, a month later, felt compelled to take a close look at him.

Then it ran away from him: a dour friendly against Andorra in which the opportunity to shine was like being asked to win a Grand Prix at the wheel of a taxi, an injury to a hamstring, another to a foot and, as frustration rose incrementally, last season burned to a crisp.

But, recently, the temptation to think he had cleared the wall was there, and not just on the basis of 84 good minutes against Wolverhampton Wanderers on this season’s first weekend eight days ago or his assist for the winning goal in that game.

Leeds issued a long injury update on Friday, a blow-by-blow breakdown from their head of medicine and performance Rob Price. The good news for Bamford was that he wasn’t mentioned at all, no longer a player who the club included as part of their walking wounded, but, less than half an hour into Saturday’s 2-2 draw at St Mary’s, Bamford was seen feeling his groin, the tell of a footballer about to signal for help.

He and Jesse Marsch spoke quickly during a drinks break and, before long, a conflab developed between the head coach, his assistants and Price on the touchline.

A few minutes later, Bamford went down and then Bamford went off. Joe Gelhardt was absent from the bench with a dead leg and Dan James stepped in to do what he could as a centre-forward, the Welshman back in the business of playing where he doesn’t want to.

It was like old times and bad times, 2021-22 revisited, as an area of the squad where Leeds were likely to be exposed was shown to be brittle very quickly. “Patrick’s not too bad, he felt tightness in his adductor,” Marsch said. Bamford and Gelhardt should train this week. This, though, is how a season becomes a long one.

Leeds’ recruitment through the summer has comprehensively tackled a dearth of bodies in most other positions, but since a £34million ($41.2m) push for Charles De Ketelaere went begging, they have toned down the rhetoric which made the acquisition of another forward sound crucial, almost to the point of implying that they might willingly leave this window without one.

If that offered a vote of confidence in the squad as it stood, James playing up top on weekend two, compensating for the lack of a full-blown No 9, was reality intervening.

Bamford had popped up twice in the first 20 minutes, with a low shot blocked and another driven wide, and history said that enough of those openings would work him back into finishing mode. But his form, his touch and his anticipation are immaterial as long as his fitness interrupts his flow, and nothing in the hunt for goals or England selection changes the fact that the first hurdle for Leeds to clear is keeping him on the pitch.

Saturday only crystalised the discussion about how the club cope if they can’t.

At a simple level, it is a case of maximising what Marsch can do.

Leeds kept control during most of the first half, teeing Southampton up in a way that made the home crowd twitchy. There were Bamford’s chances and a shot from James, driven towards the far post and well saved by Gavin Bazunu, and barring the injury, Leeds would have withdrawn for the interval convinced they had their hosts where they wanted them.

A balanced side made the game very winnable. Asking James to play the Erling Haaland role only created doubt about whether they would have the means to cut through.

The thought seemed to occur to Marsch, who used half-time to rejig the team by moving Rodrigo up front, tucking Brenden Aaronson in behind him and pushing James out to the right.

If nothing else, it felt like the forward who is closest to being an actual No 9 taking on the role and, within 60 seconds of the second half starting, Rodrigo scored. Leeds backed Southampton up, Ralph Hasenhuttl’s team made a meal of hacking their way out and Jack Harrison’s beautiful whip to the near post was turned in by the Spaniard, loitering where a striker should.

For the second time in a week, Rodrigo had scored and Marsch had used a tactical tweak to alter the chess board in his favour.

Through managing and management, Southampton looked buried and the smell of trouble was coming from them. The bottom threatened to drop out of St Mary’s and Rodrigo doubled the lead on the hour, consummating a routine Leeds had been trying all afternoon: a near-post corner flicked onto the far, where he was free to nod in from a few inches out.

This, Leeds will say, is why they are standing by Rodrigo; why Marsch and Victor Orta more than anyone else have fought to turn his two-season drag at Elland Road into a happier third year.

They could hold up the first 60 minutes here as proof of the fact that outright No 9 or no, there was the talent and class to dictate a match with some style. But on the way was a sharp retreat and a Southampton fightback, compounded by Marsch resisting substitutions as the stifling heat rose higher still.

He had spoken beforehand about the value of having five changes available to him but made none, James aside, until Joe Aribo and Kyle Walker-Peters scored to make it 2-2 with nine minutes of normal time left.

In the goals conceded, there was evidence of the defensive concerns that arose during pre-season, of full-backs compromised with nobody able to pick up the pieces as Southampton worked space out wide and took advantage of a scrambling backline to pick killer passes.

It is one reason why the right complement of attacking players matters and why Leeds need goals up their sleeve, with options to offset injuries or slumps: because aspects of this system and Marsch’s tactical structure look like making them prone to concessions.

The club, at points of the transfer window, have looked at Arnaud Kalimuendo — now bound for Rennes from Paris Saint-Germain — and an existing Rennes player, Martin Terrier. They have not categorically dismissed stories linking them to Southampton’s Che Adams either, though all Marsch said at full-time was that the club would continue to take stock. “We’re trying to be prudent in how we make our last decision,” he said. “A striker has always been on our mind.”

Marsch will stand by Bamford and this latest injury does not sound serious, but he is, as his manager conceded, in a delicate process of readjusting to games every week.

“We have to manage him appropriately,” Marsch said, having tried to reduce any risk to Bamford by limiting his training load during the week.

And that, like the central midfielder Leeds should have signed last summer, is why buying insurance makes sense.