Patrick Bamford’s Leeds United career has very much been divisive. The Marcelo Bielsa favourite has scored goals on paper but still hasn’t impressed supporters.
Those at Elland Road have regularly slammed his antics – that being his misfortune in front of the onion bag. This is despite his tally of 13 for the season.
Some of the choice words used at the 26-year-old including, “imposter”, “liability” and even “fraud”, so it can be argued that his record only tells half the story.
The Greatest Bargains in Premier League history – How much did they cost?
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In reality, the 6 foot 1 frontman has been diabolical in front of goal. If you bear in mind that he has only missed one league outing all season, the Whites possess the third-worst record for chance conversion.
Leeds have managed to convert a measly 13.6% of their 412 attempts at goal this season.
Bamford cost the west Yorkshiremen a whopping £10m on top of his reported £40k-per-week wages, so arguably he’s struggled to fully justify such hefty finances.
Having been at the club for just over 87 weeks, £13.5m has been ploughed into the former Boro frontman – that’s the accumulative spend of the star’s fee and wages in that time.
Given fans at Leeds regularly take fire at him and the sheer number of chances he puts to waste, they’ve hardly got their money’s worth, especially as he was their club-record signing in the Andrea Radrizzani era – until Helder Costa’s move becomes permanent, at least.
The Italian chief-in-command has had his pockets rinsed dry by Bamford over the past 18 months or so, and if promoted to the Premier League, those involved would be wise to find another striker to lead the line as his record in the top-flight is particularly dire – just one goal in 27 attempts.
This transfer move has been daylight robbery because, in reality, the former Chelsea product could have had triple the amount of goals scored this season and he’s hardly struck a chord with the people that pay his wages – those in the stands.
AND in other news, Phil Hay names price for Leeds star Kalvin Phillips…