Leeds United's immovable Patrick Bamford will get his day in Burnley - Daniel Chapman

In Marcelo Bielsa’s team, Pat Bamford works in a world of short crosses and cutbacks. But give him a through ball and he thrives.

Give it to him in Lancashire and he’ll guarantee a goal. Bamford didn’t get much from a loan to Burnley except a rough deal from Sean Dyche’s tarmacadam tongue, telling him piano lessons were only worthwhile on a keyboard made of razorblades.

Maybe that still motivates him against the north-west’s B-towns, one mill chimney a red flag like any other.

On Saturday, Mateusz Klich rolled the ball into Bamford’s path and he smacked it into Blackburn’s net. Last season Pablo Hernandez rolled the ball into Bamford’s path and he smacked it into Bolton’s net. Burnley’s time will come.

The goal at Bolton was politely applauded by Kemar Roofe, who had just made way for Bamford’s return from injury. This season Eddie Nketiah and Jean-Kevin Augustin have taken over the job of insisting they’re happy for Pat while wondering how to shift him.

They couldn’t. None of them could. Roofe sought starts and wages with Anderlecht. Nketiah conquered Arsenal’s first team without any of the difficulty of Leeds. And Augustin left last week, for limbo, his future no longer written in the stars but in the fine print of contracts.

Augustin’s low-key departure couldn’t have been more different from his high-profile arrival, when he stepped off a private jet into a moody social media video of flashbulb popping clichés.

It looked copied off a template of Premier League unveilings from five years ago, but we weren’t there then and we’re not there now, and it felt at odds with the litter-picking ethos Bielsa inherited and refined.

If we do get to the Premier League, the courts might order us to take Big Kev with us, but I can’t imagine his return will be given the same fanfare as the first time.

The saga of finding a benchwarmer for Bamford has consumed a lot of this season’s air, ink and pixels, but it’s not all about the number nine. That Bielsa likes a small squad is now lore, but it’s still worth comparing to our last promotion, when Simon Grayson gave 27 players six or more games. This season the number is 18.

At this stage of the 2009/10 campaign Paul Dickov, Neill Collins and Sanchez Watt were signing on and going into the team.

This season, after letting a player leave, Leeds are using team meetings and inner determination to fight for an even bigger prize. That such meetings are possible is a better indicator of how far the club has come than any hyped-up transfer announcement.

If Leeds win the Championship this season, a core group won’t just earn medals but long-service clocks: eight of the first team have played more than 100 games for Leeds, five of them more than 150, with Luke Ayling close behind.

We saw Ayling taking responsibility when poor form culminated in the depressing debacle at Nottingham Forest, and the same reserves of commitment and weary maturity are being drawn upon now.

The first three ghost games were not classics, but it was naive to think they would be. All the running stats in Wetherby can’t disguise the reality of a tired team returning after a uniquely long and isolating break, to try capturing the defining moment of their careers on an exhausting schedule playing for a relentless coach.

I’m actually impressed Kalvin Phillips can stand up, never mind stroking a free-kick into the top corner.

The scuffed and deflected shot by Klich that made the points safe on Saturday was more in line with expectations, and with memories of Jermaine Beckford scrambling Bristol Rovers’ defensive errors over the line in 2010, or Rod Wallace and Eric Cantona watching bemused as Sheffield United’s Brian Gayle headed the First Division clincher over his own goalkeeper in 1992.

This month marks six years since Liam Cooper and Gaetano Berardi signed up for getting Leeds promoted, not realising what they were letting themselves in for. They know now. They must be as sick of this division as any fan who has been waiting for 16.

Despite the large cast in Grayson’s squad, 2010’s final triumph came down to Jonny Howson, playing his 152nd game for Leeds, and Beckford, playing his 153rd.

Around them, players who had fought and lost in League One stuck together. They had learned enough together to win.

These are the weeks when years can’t be allowed to go to waste and, judging by the renewed urgency Leeds had when taking the ball off Blackburn on Saturday, that was the message put down behind the even more closed doors of Thorp Arch after drawing with Luton.

That, and sticking a sock in the gob of Adam Forshaw, or anyone else daring to talk about romping.

Bamford will get his day in Burnley, whatever it takes.