Kemar Roofe’s revelation about Leeds United team-mate Patrick Bamford speak volumes.
Patrick Bamford has been a Leeds United player for less than a month but it looks like the young striker already knows what it means to play for the club.
Bamford joined Leeds for £10 million [BBC Sport] from Middlesbrough on July 31.
The 24-year-old opened his account for United last week by scoring in the 2-1 Carabao Cup win over Bolton Wanderers, but he hasn’t started a Championship game under Marcelo Bielsa as of yet.
The main reason for that has been the superb form of Kemar Roofe, who scored Leeds’ second of the afternoon in Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Rotherham United at Elland Road.
Roofe, who curled home from a tight angle instead of passing to the unmarked Samu Saiz, revealed what Bamford told him before kickoff.
He told The Daily Mail: “I got words from Patrick before the game and he told me to be more selfish. People say we are meant to be competing against each other but he wants me to score.”
Billy Bremner was an icon at Elland Road and one of his mantras was ‘side before self every time’ and it’s clear that Bamford is a big proponent of such wisdom, despite appearing to advocate the complete opposite.
Bamford is the more accomplished Championship striker than Roofe, and the fact that he’s putting his own interests to one side in order to help Roofe improve, even if it means more bench time for him, indicates that he’s very much a team player.
He might have only played 15 minutes in the Championship this season, but Roofe’s revelation illustrates that Bamford is putting the side before himself and such an attitude breeds legends, as it did with Bremner.
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