Patrick Bamford

[johnh]

Maybe not the right thing to do to bring up this old thread, but the intense Bamford discussion has been coming back lately. In my opinion he is a decent/good striker at Championship level and he’s a really important player for us, making it possible to play the way we play. Of course he’s not a complete player or really great, but that kind of players is really hard to find at this level.

One of the things I see a lot of people (both in here, Twitter and Facebook) say is “He’s a striker, his job is to score goals!” (And therefore it’s wrong to say he’s great based on the other stuff he brings to the table”
In my view, that is a opinion that indicate a view of football might be a bit old fashion. The best team in the world at the moment is probably Liverpool, and their striker is amazing even if he doesn’t score a lot of goals. This season Firmino have only score 7 in 21 games in Premier League. This is his 5th season in England and he’s not scored more than 15 league goals in a season. A striker in modern football should be judged on a lot more than just how many goals he scores.

Liverpool have several other players who Score regularly, we don't. Liverpool have two or three players who regularly get in the box in open play and know where the back of the net is, we don't. We play one up front (who also spends time in mid-field and defence) and has trouble finding the back of the net. This is the second season where we have dominated games, sometimes significantly so, and ended up losing or drawing because we can't score goals.

[Selby White]

Maybe not the right thing to do to bring up this old thread, but the intense Bamford discussion has been coming back lately. In my opinion he is a decent/good striker at Championship level and he’s a really important player for us, making it possible to play the way we play. Of course he’s not a complete player or really great, but that kind of players is really hard to find at this level.

One of the things I see a lot of people (both in here, Twitter and Facebook) say is “He’s a striker, his job is to score goals!” (And therefore it’s wrong to say he’s great based on the other stuff he brings to the table”
In my view, that is a opinion that indicate a view of football might be a bit old fashion. The best team in the world at the moment is probably Liverpool, and their striker is amazing even if he doesn’t score a lot of goals. This season Firmino have only score 7 in 21 games in Premier League. This is his 5th season in England and he’s not scored more than 15 league goals in a season. A striker in modern football should be judged on a lot more than just how many goals he scores.

Liverpool have several other players who Score regularly, we don't. Liverpool have two or three players who regularly get in the box in open play and know where the back of the net is, we don't. We play one up front (who also spends time in mid-field and defence) and has trouble finding the back of the net. This is the second season where we have dominated games, sometimes significantly so, and ended up losing or drawing because we can't score goals.

Think that's true John, playing one up front relies on goals from midfielders. It's tough on Bamford yes he's not the most natural finisher but will still end up with a decent total possibly around 20.
But we need others getting more some of our worst shooting and misses comes from our midfield players.

[ilkley62]

Not sure how relevent this is but sat down & went through the Sheff Utd squad on paper with a Sheff Utd season ticket holder this week & its amazing that their keeper, defence & midfield are all virtually ever present in the PL (8 players i think it was) & their front 2 are rotated so they play 2 out of 4 front players evey week. They probably dont score enough but they dont give many away & the strikers will be full of energy, cant argue that its working at the moment.

[Polkadot]

Liverpool have several other players who Score regularly, we don't. Liverpool have two or three players who regularly get in the box in open play and know where the back of the net is, we don't.

Exactly. There are more players in the team than just Bamford who should be “blamed” for us not scoring enough goals.

I think it’s way too easy too just make the striker scapegoat when the team doesn’t score enough (or automatically blame the goalie if the team let in too many) and I think Bamford get a lot of unfair criticism (but also some rightful of course, I’m not saying he is a great striker). For the last part of the season we need Bamford to score 10 more goals, but we also need Harrison, Costa, Pablo, Klich etc to step up as well.

[Gaz109]

I don’t see how Bielsa can defend him anymore, forgive me for stating the obvious but as a striker his primary role is to score goals. Bielsa has back himself into a corner here, he talks about consistency and Bamford is consistently poor. The QPR game is the final straw for me today, we are bottling it again and for me Bamford is the primary reason for this he is not taking his chances. If we do get promoted guys would you say Bamford is capable of leading the line, sadly he is a mediocre championship striker and nothing more. If they don’t bring in a decent striker we will not see the premiership for a long time to come. We will miss out in the playoffs again, Bielsa will walk, Phillips will move on and I can’t blame him

[isrodger]

I don’t see how Bielsa can defend him anymore, forgive me for stating the obvious but as a striker his primary role is to score goals. Bielsa has back himself into a corner here, he talks about consistency and Bamford is consistently poor. The QPR game is the final straw for me today, we are bottling it again and for me Bamford is the primary reason for this he is not taking his chances. If we do get promoted guys would you say Bamford is capable of leading the line, sadly he is a mediocre championship striker and nothing more. If they don’t bring in a decent striker we will not see the premiership for a long time to come. We will miss out in the playoffs again, Bielsa will walk, Phillips will move on and I can’t blame him

Think you're a tad harsh on the lad as he’s playing to instructions. Maybe he does too much off the ball running to be in the right place at the right time on occasions. He’s not a natural finisher, we had one of them in Nketiah but for various reasons he wasn’t played. For me we do need to replace him, but equally need a #10 & centre back.

[Deleted User 3289]

I don’t see how Bielsa can defend him anymore, forgive me for stating the obvious but as a striker his primary role is to score goals. Bielsa has back himself into a corner here, he talks about consistency and Bamford is consistently poor. The QPR game is the final straw for me today, we are bottling it again and for me Bamford is the primary reason for this he is not taking his chances. If we do get promoted guys would you say Bamford is capable of leading the line, sadly he is a mediocre championship striker and nothing more. If they don’t bring in a decent striker we will not see the premiership for a long time to come. We will miss out in the playoffs again, Bielsa will walk, Phillips will move on and I can’t blame him

I think we need 2 new strikers. Surely Edmondson could also run around making a nuisance of himself, he's big enough? He may just score one of the chances that Bamford doesn't. I know it's pointless because if Bielsa bought him in from the cold now and he did well.....

[Gaz109]

Teams have figured us out, we can have all the possession they want to give us and know we can’t score. If we don’t go up this season there will be an exodus of staff Bielsa will be off back to South America and Radrizzani will look to invest elsewhere. The big question is who is out there to replace Bamford

[Deleted User 3289]

Teams have figured us out, we can have all the possession they want to give us and know we can’t score. If we don’t go up this season there will be an exodus of staff Bielsa will be off back to South America and Radrizzani will look to invest elsewhere. The big question is who is out there to replace Bamford

That's the million dollar question. Apparently we have been in talks with Southampton for a good while about Adams, it just seems that the Southampton hierarchy forgot to tell the manager. The wheel keeps on turning i guess but personally i would have loved the club to back MB in the TM at the beginning of the season with more quality players. If we don't go up there will always be that nagging. WHAT IF scenario for me.

[PhoenixUnited]

There has been shed loads of criticism directed at Patrick Bamford. My argument in his defence is that the rest of the team should be contributing in scoring stakes. On that basis the others wold by definition be carrying a threat and would take attention away from Bamford giving him more time and space and thus less pressure. I thought he would come good.

I have now come to the conclusion that whilst he puts a shift in every match, certainly has this season, actually he lacks that ability to be clinical in his finishing. In the way that we are set up that is a very serious shortcoming and we need much, much better. Sadly we have no alternatives. We are up the creek without a paddle........