Patrick Bamford relishing the pressure of being Leeds United’s number nine shows Marcelo Bielsa has the tools to fire the Whites into the Premier League, as quoted by the Yorkshire Evening Post.
Confidence was clearly an issue for the Grantham-born striker last season, as he regularly fired wide of the target and left fans jeering his name, even during the warm-up if he could not bury the ball into the back of the net.
Supporters need to rally around the £5.4million-rated hitman this term, though, as Kemar Roofe’s move to RSC Anderlecht took our top goalscorer away from Elland Road, and left Bamford with the task of spearheading our bid for promotion.
Eddie Nketiah has since arrived in West Yorkshire on loan from Arsenal to offer some competition, but is struggling to force the boss to change his ways, and mix up his preferred line-up, despite scoring in his Whites debut and again in his first taste of U23s action.
Bielsa may not see reason to change, though, as Bamford has three goals in three games after a fortunate brace against Wigan Athletic at the weekend, and is now beaming with confidence.
“I like it, [the pressure],” said the £35,000-a-week forward. “I’d be worried if there wasn’t pressure on me. I put pressure on myself all the time. If I score two, I want to score three. If I score three, I want to score four.
“It’s just one of those things that I always want to do better than I did. The fans get on me if I miss a chance but, to be honest, I don’t care about missing chances. It hurts that I’ve not scored, but if I’m getting chances I know I’m doing something right. I know they’ll go in eventually.”
While Bamford’s two goals helped fire Leeds to victory over Wigan, his brace came about with great fortune, and the 25-year-old has required 14 shots to achieve his three successful strikes this term.
No player in the Championship has, in fact, fashioned more efforts than Bamford, with Derby County’s Martyn Waghorn and Hull City’s Jarrod Bowen the only other players to have attempted 14 shots on goal thus far – each scoring twice.