Jesse Marsch believes Patrick Bamford took “a huge step” in direction of being again to his greatest in Leeds’ 3-1 FA Cup win at Accrington.
The 29-year-old striker made his first begin since October after an injury-ravaged 18 months and refused to be outshone by membership document signing Georginio Rutter, who additionally impressed on his debut.
Bamford teed up Jack Harrison to crash residence Leeds’ opener and brilliantly slipped in Junior Firpo for his or her second earlier than Luis Sinisterra’s emphatic end put the tie to mattress within the 68th minute.
Marsch stated of Bamford’s contribution: “I think it’s a huge step forward. Even last week, he didn’t quite feel ready to start and so we trained hard this week in preparation for this and you could see that he looks like himself.
“So, you know, then the discussion was ‘OK, how long can we go?’ And we said ‘let’s check in half-time’ and half-time he felt great.”
Bamford missed most of final season on account of successive accidents, culminating in an operation to restore a ruptured foot ligament after which had groin surgical procedure through the World Cup break.
Marsch stated: “It didn’t have the pace of what a Premier League match has, but still 75 minutes for him at this point from – what he’s been through in the last year – I think is gigantic.
“So it gives us a chance I think to really start to push Patrick to be the player we know he can be.
“It certainly gives us more weapons. We have weapons now and that’s fun for a manager to work with.”
Firpo scored his first aim for Leeds and Marsch stated the left-back was pushing for a Premier League begin.
He added Crysencio Summerville, Tyler Adams, Liam Cooper and Pascal Struijk have been all hoping to return to rivalry for subsequent Sunday’s journey to Nottingham Forest.
Accrington deservedly pulled a aim again by way of teenage substitute Leslie Adekoya and had spells after they made life uncomfortable for his or her Premier League opponents.
Midfielder and lifelong Leeds fan Harvey Rodgers spurned a golden probability for Accrington early within the second half, whereas boss John Coleman admitted his League One aspect “ran out of steam after an hour”.
“But we’ve made a couple of bob out of the cup,” Coleman added. “I don’t think we can grumble too much about losing to a Premier League side, but the day I’m happy getting beat, I’ll have to pack in.
“We’ve made about £300,000 to £400,000, which makes a big difference to us. That’s probably three weeks’ wages for one of their players, so that’s the difference.”
