Marcelo Bielsa’s Championship promotion pushers Leeds United reportedly want to sign Sam Cosgrove from Aberdeen in January.
Even the usually unflappable Ben White was knocked out of his stride by Fulham’s bullying battering ram.
The Brighton loanee has been nothing short of a revelation since joining Leeds United over the summer, producing composed and classy performances on a weekly basis to induce tantalising flashbacks of a young Rio Ferdinand.
But during Leeds’ trip to West London on Saturday, White discovered that this Championship lark isn’t always a stroll in the park. In Aleksandar Mitrovic, Fulham have the divisions 17-goal top scorer, a shaven-headed Serbian centre-forward who tends to save his best for the big occasion.
And, sure enough, it was a Mitrovic penalty which set Scott Parker’s side on their way to a much-needed win while wreaking havoc on Leeds’s usually watertight backline.
Leeds’ own number nine, Patrick Bamford, may be just four centremeters shorter but it’s fair to say he is a rather different beast. While Mitrovic is all elbows and power, Bamford is a classy centre-forward at his best with the ball at his feet rather than flying through the air.
But if reports from north of the border are to be believed, Leeds have their sights set on a player who could be their answer to Fulham’s goalscoring talisman. According to the Scottish Sun, Leeds sent scouts to watch Aberdeen’s £4 million-rated man mountain Sam Cosgrove on Saturday.
The Beverley-born Mitrovic?
The one-time Carlisle United striker has a remarkable 20 goals in 27 games this season. And, with seven yellow cards and a red to his name, those similarities with the famously firebrand Mitrovic don’t stop at the 6ft-something frame and a penchant for lethal finishing.
As you might expect from a striker who honed his trade under the fearsome Duncan Ferguson in Everton’s academy, Cosgrove is a man who uses his physique to his advantage. The 22-year-old is the epitome of the old-school number nine, a penalty-box poacher who thrives on the sort of crosses that (quite literally) go over Bamford’s head at Elland Road.
Under Marcelo Bielsa, a possession-heavy, free-flowing Leeds side play arguably the most eye-catching football in the division and Bamford, albeit a stronger, more square-shouldered Bamford, epitomises that.
But even a purist like Bielsa can appreciate what a ferocious targetman like Mitrovic can bring to the team. He turned Fernando Llorente into a World Cup winner in Bilbao, transformed Bamford from a luxury player into someone willing to shed blood, sweat and tears for the cause.
Cosgrove may not be the typical Bielsa centre-forward but trying to second guess this most enigmatic of Argentines is a fool’s game?
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