Patrick Bamford issues encouraging fitness update and cites only 'miss' on Leeds United return

Bamford was plagued by a series of injury issues in United’s second season back in the Premier League last term and the first half of the current campaign has not been smooth sailing for the striker who had minor groin surgery in December.

Bamford, though, started his first game since the Premier League clash at Leicester City on October 20 when lining up in Saturday’s FA Cup fourth round clash at Accrington in which he provided two assists and came through 77 minutes of a 3-1 victory. The 29-year-old led the line flanked by new signing Georginio Rutter and the returning Luis Sinisterra who was also having his first start since October upon recovering from a Lisfranc foot injury.

Speaking post match to BBC, Bamford was asked how he was feeling and beamed: “I'm feeling a lot better to be honest. I think today I was just missing a goal. But I've just been building the minutes up slowly which is good, gradual progress, and I'm feeling better with each game."

Assessing United’s display as a team, Bamford reasoned: “I think as a team we started a little bit slow. They actually made it really difficult and played their style which took us a while to adapt to and then I think after we got the first goal we started to grow into the game and then in the second half we were much better."