Leeds United have been dealt a huge blow ahead of their Carabao Cup meeting with Wolverhampton Wanderers on Wednesday evening.
What’s the latest?
That’s according to Phil Hay, with The Athletic journalist revealing on a recent episode of The Phil Hay Show that Patrick Bamford – who has started just four Premier League fixtures this season due to a series of injuries – now looks set to miss both tomorrow’s cup tie and Saturday’s meeting with Tottenham Hotspur after suffering yet another setback.
Regarding the current condition of the 29-year-old, Hay said: “You’ll know that Bamford was missing again at the weekend. Marsch said he’d injured himself taking a penalty at Thorp Arch on Friday [in] basically the last kick of training, and it is genuinely one thing after another with Bamford.
“Given that he’ll now miss the League Cup game against Wolves, and I would think, Spurs away as well – it was a seven-day injury they were talking about but it might be a challenge for him to be fit for the weekend – he will have gone, by the time the season resumes, a full calendar year without scoring.”
The news comes amid Luis Sinisterra also being ruled out for the foreseeable future.
Huge blow
While it is true that Leeds currently have a wealth of young attacking talent breaking through into Jesse Marsch’s first-team squad – such as Joe Gelhardt, Sam Greenwood, Crysencio Summerville and Wilfried Gnonto – with none of these players particularly being an out-and-out number nine, Bamford’s loss will have come as a huge blow to the American.
Indeed, while Rodrigo has been in decent goalscoring form this season – bagging seven goals over his 12 Premier League fixtures – the Spaniard is also more of a second striker than a focal point of the team, resulting in the absence of the England international leaving Marsch extremely short of choice up top.
And, despite the 29-year-old being yet to score over his ten league appearances this season, the £10.5m-rated talent more than proved over his 38 top-flight fixtures back in 2020/21 just how clinical a fully fit Bamford is, with the striker bagging 17 goals and providing his teammates with a further eight assists – averaging a direct goal involvement every 122 minutes of football played.
As such, with Leeds finally looking to be putting together a decent run of form following wins over Liverpool and AFC Bournemouth, the centre-forward’s latest setback will undoubtedly have come as a gutting blow to Marsch – who will certainly be hoping his side can pick up yet another positive result at Molineux in order to continue their current momentum.