Former England striker Darren Bent has predicted that Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa will continue to start Patrick Bamford in their last 10 Championship fixtures of the season.
The former Middlesbrough and Norwich City striker has been a regular for the West Yorkshire outfit this season, starting 34 of their 36 Championship fixtures to date whilst also playing 90 minutes in their FA Cup tie against Arsenal (Transfermarkt).
Last week against Hull City, however, he was substituted after 67 minutes with Welsh international Tyler Roberts replacing him. And the 21-year-old certainly took his opportunity, scoring two goals at the KCOM Stadium despite only being on the pitch for 23 minutes (Transfermarkt).
That has led to some Leeds fans calling for Roberts to start in their next game against Huddersfield Town, but Bent believes that it will be Bielsa’s go-to man Bamford who once again gets the nod to lead the line, and that will be the case until the end of the campaign.
Speaking about who will start up front for the Whites in upcoming games, Bent told Football Insider: “Listen, it was two good goals he [Roberts] scored, two good goals, but for whatever reason Bamford is Bielsa’s guy.
“However you want to look at it, Bielsa loves him. Now I don’t mind Bamford, I know a lot of people give him a lot of criticism because he doesn’t score enough goals or that he misses a lot of chances but he works so hard for that team.
“He’s one of those players that if you ask his teammates, they’d say they’d miss him because he works hard, puts a shift in, does a lot of running, shuts people down and he does chip in with the odd goal.
“For me, Bamford from now until the end of the season is going to start but Tyler Roberts is pushing him.”
Whilst Roberts certainly impressed against Hull, it is hard to argue with Bent here and it seems extremely likely that Bamford will retain his place in the starting 11 going forward.
As already mentioned, the 26-year-old has started 34 games in the league this season meaning he has been in the first 11 for 94% of their games so far. That is despite his form not being the best at all, indeed he has failed to score in any of their last seven games (Transfermarkt).
That said, Jean-Kevin Augustin is currently out with an injury (Examiner) so there could well be another opportunity for Roberts to make an appearance from the bench when he can put further pressure on Bielsa to pick him by producing another strong display.
Leeds fans, do you think that Patrick Bamford should continue in the starting line-up? Let us know below…