With news of Patrick Bamford suffering an injury in our recent Under 23 game as he attempted to get valuable match minutes under his belt, talk of a replacement for Leeds United purely from a numbers front is no surprise.
What is a possible surprise is that we are again being linked with former Carpi striker Jerry Mbakogu again. His history should be well known, it goes back to the 2017/18 January window and whilst he was initially a reported seven-figure target back in early August he secured a free agent release from his former club and we were linked again.
It’s lazy journalism in reality on the back of the Bamford news to see us again linked with the 25-year-old as if we had any real interest in last season’s January window, we would have definitely followed it up when he was a free agent already. The fact we haven’t meant we saw no benefit in the player as even a punt and backup.
So why would we now sign him given the Bamford news? If he wasn’t backup worthy previously, it means at some level we decided our future was better spent and better served – if things went wrong – looking at youth.
I fail to see why that would change now as although football might exist in a bubble, I can’t imagine a man like Marcelo Bielsa hasn’t wondered how to deal with Bamford and Kemar Roofe being unavailable.