Kemar Roofe led the line in Leeds United’s first pre-season under new head coach Marcelo Bielsa.
Given the events of the window so far, it would have surprised few Leeds fans that Kemar Roofe was chosen to lead the line in their first pre-season friendly of the summer – even with the unpredictable Marcelo Bielsa now at the helm at Elland Road.
Roofe was last season’s top goalscorer and the only other forward to score a decent number of times last term, Pierre-Michel Lasogga, has returned to Hamburg following the end of his loan spell.
Bielsa has been keen to sign a new striker of course, but the Yorkshire Evening Post reported earlier in the month that the £11 million pursuit of Matej Vydra has cooled due to the Derby ace’s wage demands, while the move for Abel Hernandez has also lost a lot of momentum.
It would be a huge surprise if Leeds did not make a significant push to sign a new goalscorer before the season starts, but Roofe now has the chance to stake a real claim to remain Bielsa’s first-choice.
And while he scored the first goal of the Argentinian’s tenure, it would perhaps be fair to suggest that he did not do enough during the opening friendly to make Leeds’ striker hunt seem less urgent than it was before the game.
Roofe showed some composure for the goal and looked bright throughout the 2-1 win over Forest Green, but missed a number of chances throughout the game. On another day, he could have quite easily had a hat-trick from the contest.
He will probably gain some sharpness in front of goal as the games go by, but he may well be disappointed that he came away from The New Lawn with just one goal.
Bielsa was always unlikely to drop his pursuit of a new striker off the back of a result against Forest Green, but Roofe had a fantastic opportunity to make an impression on his new boss. And perhaps, he did not quite take that chance as emphatically as he would have liked.
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