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Leeds’ 6ft ace’s display ensures prominent pundit’s comments came back to haunt – opinion

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Patrick Bamford’s display against Brentford on Wednesday night ensured Danny Mills’ comments on the Leeds United striker came back to haunt the former England international, but unfortunately for the wrong reasons.

Speaking to Football Insider ahead of the Bees’ trip to Elland Road, the prominent pundit lauded Bamford for his promising start to the season, having struck three goals in three games – including netting a brace against Wigan Athletic to win the game.

Striking the winning goals against the Latics helped Bamford earn Mills’ attention, too, as the 6ft forward squandered a number of chances to break the goal line against Nottingham Forest the week before, when Sabri Lamouchi’s men held us to a point.

“I think if you miss more [chances] than that [against Forest] people start to go: ‘That’s two games on the spin you’ve missed a couple of chances’,” Mills said.

“Now, obviously, you can say: ‘Leave that behind you, done and dusted, not a problem.’ There’s always that argument that you’ve got to be in that position to score goals and the team’s got to create chances.

“At some point, you’ve got to start putting them in the back of the net, and that’s what he did on Saturday.”

Unfortunately, against Brentford, Bamford returned to Elland Road with the same form that saw the 25-year-old squander his chances in front of goal against Forest, and second-half substitute Eddie Nketiah’s first Championship strike was required to ensure we stayed at the top of the table.

The door was open for Bamford to stretch his tally on Wednesday night, but he failed to capitalise on two free headers in the first half, with the first sailing over the bar while the latter dropped wide of the empty net as David Raya Martin rushed out.

By the full-time whistle, WhoScored had only credited two efforts on goal to his name – with both off-target – along with misplacing 21% of his passes, being dispossessed five times, caught offside twice and lost all of his aerial duels.

With Nketiah now boasting two goals in two senior games, the pressure that Bamford claims to be enjoying must ensure that a diamond is formed.

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