Leeds Must Ditch £70K-P/W Dud vs West Ham

Leeds United will be under no illusion of the importance of their performance when they head to east London this afternoon for their Premier League clash with West Ham United.

The Whites are in a precarious position in the top flight table as they are two points from safety ahead of their penultimate fixture, and Sam Allardyce must find the perfect recipe to take all three points from their opponents to keep the survival chances as high as possible.

Indeed, Leeds showed promising signs of their capabilities in their fight to retain their Premier League status when they took a point away from their Elland Road outing against Newcastle United last weekend, but there is still a lot of work left to be done to escape the bottom three over the remaining two games.

Goals are going to be the key for all the teams fighting off the drop into the Championship, something Allardyce will be all too familiar with having expertly led the likes of Sunderland, Bolton Wanderers and Crystal Palace to survival in the past to name a few.

As a result, the Leeds boss must carefully consider who can be relied upon to deliver those moments of magic in front of goal in the dying days of the season and boldly ditching Patrick Bamford could in fact be the move that saves their season.

Will Patrick Bamford start vs West Ham?

The £70k-per-week striker has been a huge disappointment over the campaign and displayed once again against the Magpies that he is lacking confidence and quality in the final third.

Over his 89-minute performance, Bamford had just one shot on target, completed only 14 accurate passes and lost five duels, but it was his penalty miss that really summed up the centre-forward’s struggles.

The game-defining penalty miss that would’ve put the West Yorkshire club 2-0 up in front of the home support led to heavy criticism, with BBC Sport Pundit Matt Kilgallon claiming on BBC Radio Leeds (via MOT Leeds News) that the striker needs to be dropped:

“I said for the Leicester game, I think we should’ve taken him out. And you saw it in the game, he did two kicks out of his hands. He’s never done that before in his life. In training, he’d be able to hit a sign from 60 yards away with no problem.”

“Just with Bamford now, for his own good, I’m not saying he might be wishing he’s taken out. But maybe, that penalty today, could someone have taken that off him and taken that pressure off him?”

In fact, the Leeds striker – dubbed “anonymous” by journalist Beren Cross – has only scored four league goals this season in 27 appearances, with a goal scored every 371 minutes which is just not consistent enough if the side are going to have any hope of staying up.

Luckily, Allardyce has some sound attacking players to lean on as Rodrigo thrived in the centre-forward role over the first half of the season during Bamford’s absence through injury, tallying up a total of 14 goals and two assists in all competitions so far.

With that being said, the former England manager has a huge decision to make in his attacking threat as the starting eleven he selects this afternoon could ultimately be season-defining for the Whites.