New Leeds United manager Jesse Marsch hints at Patrick Bamford return against Aston Villa
Patrick Bamford claps the fans after drawing to Brentford
Patrick Bamford could make his Leeds United comeback when Aston Villa travel to Elland Road in the Premier League on Thursday, new manager Jesse Marsch has said.
The 28-year-old's campaign has been ravaged by injury, restricting the striker to just six appearances in the league so far this season, with his last back on December 5.
He was an unused substitute as Leeds lost 1-0 to Leicester City at the King Power Stadium on Saturday to leave them just two points outside of the relegation places.
Leeds had 19 shots on target but failed to beat Kasper Schmeichel, and new manager Marsch threw on Tyler Roberts to deny Bamford a brief cameo.
"I don't think Patrick's ready to be on from the start," the American told reporters. "Let's see how the week goes but certainly I think he'll be ready to put in some minutes come Thursday.
"Patrick is back in training, he will continue to progress more and more, we'll get him fitter and fitter and sharper and sharper and then we will be able to rely on him in these 11 games."
Roberts got injured when tweaking his hamstring as he extended himself to challenge Daniel Amartey and is now a doubt for the visit of Villa, while Marsch suggested Bamford would only have been available for 10 minutes at best against Brendan Rodgers' men but could feature on Thursday.
"Patrick was maximum 10 minutes, so obviously we want to get him on the pitch as quickly as we possibly can but I felt we needed to make a change before that 10-minute mark," Marsch said.
"Then of course we put Tyler on the pitch and it leads to him having a weird collision inside the box and him having a little bit of a hamstring strain and then we're almost playing a man down for the last phase.
"We'll see exactly what's going on with Tyler."
