MOT View: Leeds mainstay surely set to face stiffer competition upon return
Leeds United have nine games to get through once football returns to finally end their near-two decade break from the Premier League.
Marcelo Bielsa has put together a squad that has gone above all expectations in becoming one of the best sides in the Championship – all from a bucketload of trust and his strict training regimes.
One of the players that has benefitted most from his trust is Patrick Bamford. The forward has come under great pressure from fans at times to be dropped and has recently been given the added competition of Jean-Kevin Augustin.
Augustin wasn’t fit when he first arrived and Bamford benefitted by scoring a double against Millwall with the Frenchman watching.
Now that there has been a big break because of the coronavirus pandemic, Augustin has had more time to get fully fit – something that fans have noticed in his leaner figure on social media posts.
The RB Leipzig loanee has only featured in snippets off the bench so far since arriving from Germany, and now that he has been given the chance to catch up, he is ready to offer better competition for Bielsa to think about.
Bielsa will be wanting Augustin to rediscover the form that he had in his first year in the Bundesliga where he scored nine and assisted fives goals from 25 appearances [WhoScored].
The 22-year-old also scored goals in the Europa League and Champions League in that campaign – not bad. Bamford will face more pressure if Augustin can find the back of the net at Elland Road, something he has promised to do recently.
Bamford has had three different periods this season, one facing the pressure from Eddie Nketiah, one where he was the only option and now the stiff competition of a fully-fit Augustin which is surely set to be the stiffest.
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