Leeds United manager Jesse Marsch has insisted he is confident that striker Patrick Bamford will start scoring goals whilst calling for his other players to help the forward in his quest to put the ball in the back of the net.
Injuries have been a major predicament for the Englishman for the best part of a year with the 29-year-old limited to just nine Premier League appearances last term, during which he scored two goals.
This term has seen Bamford feature in six of the Whites' eight league matches, however, the striker has started half of those amid ongoing issues with his fitness.
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As part of his recovery, the forward was included in Leeds U21's lineup for their Premier League 2 match against Southampton B last month in which the striker scored a hat trick in a 6-2 thumping.
However, the Englishman hasn't scored a senior goal for the Yorkshire outfit since early December last year and, ahead of Leeds' home meeting with Arsenal on the weekend, Marsch has admitted that the forward is edging towards being fully fit.
"Firstly, it’s great that I think he's getting closer and closer to fully being 100%, which he knows he hasn't been in quite some time," the American manager said in his pre-match press conference ahead of Sunday's match against the Gunners. "So that part's really good. He's looked good in training this week.
"I said after the match [against Crystal Palace] that he's part of the solution for us for sure, in terms of finding ways to score more goals, and that's what it is. It's getting him physically better, it's getting him fitter, it's getting him more up to speed with our tactics with everything we're trying to do and getting him sharper around the goal because we know he's always dangerous.
"So I think he's very important guy and we need to keep them sharp, sharp and fit until we get to November 12.
"Over the years, every striker I've had that's gone through a tough time or even a good time, they get criticised a lot more for the chances that they missed and then the ones that they make. And for me, I always look at strikers as are they fitting into the game the way we want them to and then are they at least creating chances for themselves, are finding themselves in front of the goal?
"Even if they're missing chances, I think if they're dangerous in the match, then it's only a matter of time before those moments are going to start to add up and that's how I feel with Patrick. So yeah, he hasn't scored yet this season but again, getting fit, getting him healthy, getting him training every day. In training, he's scoring goals in 21s matches and these kinds of things. He's scoring goals, so it's going to come it's going to come."
Marsch was also quizzed about the importance of having goal scorers throughout his team and not just relying on Bamford to put the ball in the back of the net, to which the Leeds boss responded: "I don't think we have that dynamic.
"I think we believe that Patrick can be a big bonus for us and help us in the attacking part of the field, but I don't think anyone assumes that it's only his role.
"One of the things with attacking players in general, the makeup of attacking players is generally more selfish than defensive players. That's why defenders typically defend more and they're more unified and how they do things as a group and, and attacking players are a little bit more driven by individual goals and their ego to find those moments.
"For me, it's more about taking the group we have and having them really understand how we work together. We had a good meeting this week where I was with the attacking players and Rene was with the defensive players. I spoke with them about what the game looked like, what we need more out of them, how to be more connected in moments, how to have more poise in the final third, how to sometimes be a little bit more individually driven by taking players on and being a little bit more creative and getting the balance right and all those moments and being an attacking player is probably harder than being a defensive player.
"Defensive players maybe harbour more responsibility for when they make mistakes because they give up goals but finding goals is the hardest thing to do in our sport.
"You have to challenge those guys to understand the system and how they fit in tactically with each other but then give them freedom to go out and play and do the things that they do well and that's the balance I tried to strike as a manager."
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