Leeds United Chat • Re: The #LUFC Breakfast Debate (Wednesday 19th February) With 13 games to go, how many pts needed to go up?

When I look at the Bristol game there were two or three instances where Bristol were not able to park the bus in front of goal... Bamford slips and recovers and passes a delicious ball to Harrison but his cross is missed by Costa... and then Dallas slips the ball through to Costa who has only the keeper to beat but Bentley makes an incredible recovery to stop to ball going into the net, and finally the break away from Phiĺips and his pass to Augustin who clips his shot past the post.

Three close efforts from our attacking men, but the one that grabs the attention of the crowd and the pundits is when Bamford shoots straight at the keeper. Cut the boy some slack. He does not need to be the focus of attention.

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Again, true but Bristol was a good game that went our way in a great all-round team performance. I agree that in an ideal world he shouldn't be the sole focus of attention but a great deal of slack has already been cut for him all season. In fact, I can't think of a club whose fans would applaud off the pitch (as happened at Bristol - we still appreciate a good shift) a striker with such a low goal return for a team whose chance creation to goals scored ratio is as lopsided as ours. Social media is it's own nightmare but Twitter should be destroyed in my books, so I'm not going to speak for that side of things - every player should stay away from that pit of vipers - but I think most fans (except faaip, he's still treating him like Lord Voldemort ) have granted Paddy slack in abundance.

Personally speaking, the most frustrating thing about Bamford is that he is absolutely capable of pulling off a peach of a finish, and he's shown himself to be a clever attacking thinker and frequently gets to the ball ahead of defenders. Bielsa himself recently stated, and I quote; “Of course I would like him to have more efficiency, but I value a lot that in every match he is in good condition to score. We hope that he gets what he deserves.” Is Bielsa quite so sanguine in his private heart? Well, he's a unique breed so who knows, but I can't imagine any other team, any other manager or any other fans persevering with Bamford in the way ours have.

I'm not going to say he's a crap striker because that would be oversimplifying a complex issue but I ask everyone here which statement is more accurate - that Bamford is lucky to be at Leeds, or Leeds are lucky to have Bamford?

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