Leeds United need goals to stay in Premier League but who will score them? - The Athletic 5/3/23

By Phil Hay

“Where was Patrick Bamford?,” Javi Gracia was asked.

There are days when it seems as if Leeds United are stuck in Bamford’s personal time warp; different years, different head coaches, but that recurring question about a No 9 who is endlessly on the horizon, never quite in full view.

Bamford, for the record, was at home while Leeds were losing 1-0 at Chelsea on Saturday, resting a leg injury that, to continue the cycle of the past year and a half, is said to be none too serious.

This is the thing with Bamford. His injuries rarely are bad ones, or not that the club let on, but they cling to him like drizzle — never a full-blown downpour but never relenting completely either. New head coach Gracia is hopeful of having him back this week. It is not the first time a man in his job has sat and predicted that.

Time was when the return of Bamford was viewed as a parachute for a plummeting team but Leeds have all but moved beyond that train of thought. As they might after so long without him scoring their goals. And that, in many ways, is the point. Bamford no longer dictates the narrative at Elland Road, and what Leeds do up front is not wholly on him.

The club are anxious about goals — as teams in their league position often are — and the lingering thought after the defeat at Stamford Bridge was how long they have been waiting for a player to merrily roll them in. (If truth be told, ever since Bamford was nearing Premier League boss level.)

Rodrigo started this season scoring for fun, then fractured a leg last month — just when the since-sacked Jesse Marsch could least afford to lose him. In the list of things Leeds wondered if they would ever find themselves saying, acutely missing Rodrigo is near the top.

Georginio Rutter arrived for £30million ($36m) in January, breaking their transfer record, but he is going through a teething process. Gracia finished on Saturday with Wilfried Gnonto and Mateo Joseph leading the line — one 19-year-old who has surprised everyone in his first season in England and another who has not been granted the minutes to make the same waves.

The deficit in performance could be depicted by a calculation of expected goals, the metric the game likes to fall back on to decide if a team are toothless, wasteful or just plain unlucky, but there is a colder way of explaining where Leeds’ attack is at.

Their 11 league games in the aftermath of the World Cup have yielded seven goals. It is not too far off becoming a complex.

“If we can’t score many, we have to be compact and solid and concede less,” Gracia said, and it is hard to argue with the sense in that. Except as Gracia knows, wins depend on goals and wins are what could buy his side top-flight safety with room and fixtures to spare. Anything else condemns them to be stuck in a struggle to the bitter end for a second year running, at the mercy of other clubs grasping the goal-scoring nettle.

On the compact and solid front, Gracia’s first fortnight has gone relatively well.

Chelsea ran a lot of the match but they are twitching at home and Graham Potter has live-current running through him on the touchline, no longer the head coach who liked to sit impassive and with self-assurance in the dugout during his Brighton days.

Joao Felix hit the crossbar, Illan Meslier got a hand to a goalbound finish from Kai Havertz and Chelsea’s winner in the 53rd minute was set-piece hell, an outswinging corner met by Wesley Fofana climbing above a planted Weston McKennie.

Restricting Chelsea to three efforts on target was fine until one of them went in. Then it fell to Leeds to show what their forward line was made of, to engage Kepa Arrizabalaga in a knife fight. Rutter went closest to equalising with a shot, which Benoit Badiashile blocked without knowing much about where the ball was. Meslier, in a goalkeeping Hail Mary in the last few seconds of stoppage time, had as good a chance as anyone with a header, held by counterpart Kepa.

Gracia was asked if rectifying that end of the pitch was a worry. “I prefer to be calm and work on it,” he said.

It was a mark of Chelsea’s state, of the tide Potter has been swimming against, that Saturday’s trip to west London came with the promise of something for Leeds.

A fairer context was to say that whether or not Chelsea were presently a good side, they had an ample supply of good players to win the game anyway. Enzo Fernandez and Mateo Kovacic made a mess of Gracia’s midfield for the first half hour and the initial stages of the second half, rendering Leeds passive in circumstances where a sceptical home crowd might have helped them.

Potter is living week to week, trying to keep his show on the road.

Finishing was less of a handicap for Leeds than their final ball in the build-up, and the weekend’s action accentuated the difficulty of the job Gracia has taken on. “We need goals — like all the teams,” Gracia said. “If you don’t score, you don’t win. But watching the attitude of my players, I’m proud of them.”

Attitude is not where the season has fallen down. It was not Marsch’s problem and it is unlikely to be Gracia’s.

What Leeds possess, and what has brought trouble their way, is a team into whom winning is not ingrained or who cannot do it often enough and now, are not scoring with any regularity.

Bamford’s latest absence should be brief. Rodrigo was hoping he would be fit on this side of the international break that begins in two weeks.

Barring a spurt of finishes from Crysencio Summerville, all of them crammed into the space of three weeks just before the World Cup, Rodrigo has been the closest thing to a banker up front and he, more than Bamford, might be the card up Gracia’s sleeve.

“It’s not only about strikers,” Gracia insisted. “All the team have to be ready to collaborate.”

Fair comment, and the mantra of managers the world over.

But he would sleep more soundly if he could confidently say who will turn the trickle of goals into a flood.