Patrick Bamford is under penalty pressure – is exposing him asking for trouble? — The Athletic 26/10/23
By Phil Hay
Pablo Hernandez could thread a needle from a yard away and
nutmeg a player from 10 times that distance, and if you close your eyes at
Stoke City, you can see the execution of a goal that left an imprint on the
brain: Adam Forshaw’s pass, Jack Harrison’s lay-off, Hernandez’s
knife-through-butter moment and Stuart Dallas’ unerring shot.
Forget what they say about Stoke away, on whichever day of
the week or whatever the weather; beauty is achievable in the Potteries with
the right tools and enough grey matter. Leeds’ attack in 2019 was, some reckon,
the bones of the best goal they scored on Marcelo Bielsa’s watch, or the most
technically sexy of all his 257. You could argue the toss about that all night.
Stoke took Bielsa’s scalp in the previous season, a bitter
afternoon catching Leeds cold, and Nathan Jones — Stoke’s coach for as long as
he could cling onto the job — saw the result marked by the club framing and
hanging a photograph of him at full-time in the corridor outside their press
room. As if to prove that nothing lasts forever, that photo of him is long
gone, a glimpse of Jones as king for a day.
The point is that on the weekend of that Dallas goal, Leeds
were incredibly happy in their own skin. The players were honed, the world was
right, and the parallel before Stoke away yesterday was that Leeds,
surreptitiously, had been growing in levels of contentment, almost on the
quiet. A club who were making hard work of getting to the men’s room a couple
of months ago were well down the path towards getting a grip, or so it seemed.
But that was before last night, when the cliches about Stoke
away kicked in and Leeds’ trip there produced a spectacle which only an empty
seat could love.
Patrick Bamford missed a penalty, his first memorable
interjection for Leeds since the last time he missed one. Daniel Farke’s choice
of team went against him and Stoke dug out a 1-0 win when Wesley’s header from
a corner — a few minutes after Bamford’s miss — struck the crossbar, hit Pascal
Struijk on the head and bounced into the net; everything Dallas’ 2019
masterpiece was not.
For the duration of the match, too much was wrong but, not
for the first time — and who knows if for the last? — everything zoned in on
the penalty.
Bamford missed two of them last season, against Arsenal and
Newcastle, both costly missteps in a year ending in relegation. His second, at
home to Newcastle in April, had wholly unpalatable consequences: threats and
abuse, online and in person, which raised a debate about whether Bamford, after
five years in the building, might be minded to move on. They were big moments,
stressful moments, that helped to define a shockingly bad campaign all around.
Aside from Bamford’s sketchy spot-kick record, a very
average rate of five conversions from 10 attempts for Leeds, it was apparent
after the Newcastle one that for any future penalties he would be in a bubble
of pressure 12 yards out; so much so that it was questionable whether exposing
him in that way again was optimal or asking for trouble.
Put simply, there were other players who could have had a go
from 12 yards last night after Ben Pearson clipped Bamford’s heels with 16
minutes left. There were other players without the same history. Crysencio
Summerville asked for the ball and suggested that captain Struijk pull rank,
but Bamford laid his hands on it, placed it down and whipped it slackly over
the crossbar.
Worse was to come.
Joel Piroe is Farke’s designated penalty-taker but has been
substituted five minutes earlier. “I
wanted Piroe to take it,” Farke said, in answer to the question of who should
have. “Piroe is our main taker.”
Farke said he planned to speak to Bamford today and conceded
that in light of the forward’s other misses, leaving him on penalties was a
risk, with prior criticism potentially in his head.
“Under my regime, it was his first miss,” Farke said. “Right
now, after he missed it, probably for the next game a different player will
take one.
“Patrick is the most disappointed player in the dressing
room. I don’t need to criticise him.
“(Maybe) he wanted it too much to prove the doubters wrong,
that he can take penalties, but he doesn’t have to prove anyone wrong. He’s
scored many penalties. But if you’re on such a run, it’s perhaps the right
decision next time to let a different player take a penalty. Otherwise, the
pressure is mounting even more.
“He wanted to take the responsibility. I think he’s
experienced enough to deal with all the criticism which comes.”
But it was fair to ask how many failed attempts it should
have taken before someone intervened and steered Bamford away from a scenario
which keeps blowing up in his face. His confidence in grabbing the ball is not
there in the strike that follows.
Stoke cashed in and went through some low gears, pushing
forward in the 80th minute, forcing a corner, Struijk turning in a rebound he
could not avoid touching. Leeds had no way back.
Bamford’s penalty, objectively, was not the whole of the
plot.
Farke made changes to his line-up — Willy Gnonto, Ilia Gruev
and Jaidon Anthony in for Summerville, Glen Kamara and Dan James — and had
cause to regret it from an early stage. Gruev, on his full debut, found that
while quality can sag dramatically in the Championship, the pace of the
division is uncompromising and non-negotiable. Anthony took until the second
half to stop possession running away for him and Gnonto was never truly in it.
The energy of substitutions was called for when they came.
Georginio Rutter, a class apart and the sore thumb of
quality, did what he could and his ball to Bamford — sent on for Piroe with 70
minutes gone — drew a stumbling foul from Pearson.
That was the moment for Farke; the chance to show again that
if you do not knock this Leeds team out, they will find a way to chin you. But
in the Championship, there is only so much a team can get away with in an
evening, a chilly one at Stoke or anywhere else.
Leeds were a clean strike away from talking about the type
of result good teams grind out. As it was, a clip around the ear was not so far
off what they deserved; self-inflicted, and brought on themselves.
