Why Patrick Bamford Would Be the Best January Striker Signing for Chelsea
Patrick Bamford is a Chelsea player. Well, sort of.
The 22-year-old joined the club in January 2012, although he's yet to feature in a competitive game for the Blues. He's not even sat on the bench for the first team.
His four years at Stamford Bridge have been spent away from west London on loan with MK Dons, Derby County, Middlesbrough and, this season, Crystal Palace.
TOP NEWS
Madrid Fines Players $590K 😲
'Mbappé Out' Petition Gaining Steam 😳
Star-Studded World Cup Ad 🤩
The latest we're hearing is that he will join Championship strugglers QPR for the remainder of the season after his six months with Palace proved a disaster, according to Sami Mokbel of the Daily Mail.
Surely it's high time Chelsea gave him his chance, though.
In so doing, it would save the club investing millions this January in the likes of Alexandre Pato, who, like Bamford, comes with no guarantee of success in the Premier League. As the cliche reads for players already employed at a club, promoting Bamford would be like a new signing for Guus Hiddink's side.
He's ideal for what Chelsea need for the present and future.
Hiddink isn't looking for a player to be starting matches regularly. He has Diego Costa for that, while Loic Remy is more than serviceable as a backup.
Outside a lack of form in front of goal, it's the third-choice frontman who has been Chelsea's biggest issue this season. Radamel Falcao has rarely been fit, which has left the squad short at key moments.
When Costa was suspended and Remy joined Falcao on the treatment table at Christmas, it meant Chelsea travelled to Old Trafford to face Manchester United without a recognised striker.
When Scunthorpe United visited Stamford Bridge last week, Hiddink had no choice but to play Costa up front, as there was no other player in his squad who was available. That was a risk, given that League 1 opponents in the FA Cup were a lesser challenge than back-to-back Premier League encounters with West Bromwich Albion and Everton in the same seven-day period.
In those moments against United and Scunthorpe, Bamford would have been ideal. He would have been deputising in the way a third-choice striker should, getting minutes intermittently.
Chelsea don't need to pay big bucks to field players who can do that. They have an academy that's supposed to be filling those sorts of spaces in their squad; they've invested heavily in young players with the view to their becoming regulars.
Right now, they're not getting the opportunities to make that happen. If they're not on loan, they're left playing football in the development teams. At the time of writing, Bamford himself was representing Chelsea's under-21s—and scoring twice—against QPR in a friendly at Cobham.
For a player who's registered over 100 professional appearances in the various leagues across England while on loan, that's not conducive to him ever being able to prove himself capable enough of playing for Chelsea.
It's only by featuring under Hiddink that we will learn what the striker is really made of.
We know that he has scored goals wherever he has played—his spell at Palace being the anomaly—so the challenge now is to transfer that form into a Chelsea shirt.
Bamford has earned the right to at least attempt that. That's not to suggest he will prove prolific enough to warrant a place in Chelsea's squad moving forward, but he deserves the opportunity no less.
How else will it happen?
His task in those spells with MK Dons, Derby and Boro was to score goals and show Chelsea he is developing. He delivered emphatically. Indeed, he even came close to getting Middlesbrough promoted to the Premier League almost single-handedly last season.
Chelsea shouldn't be looking to the transfer market for their business this January. As a contest, their season in the Premier League is over, and the focus now should be to build for the next permanent manager.
That means promoting more of their young talent with the view to their gaining experience and proving whether the investment has been sound or not.
Chelsea should just look across the capital to what's happening at Tottenham Hotspur. Under Mauricio Pochettino, Spurs are mounting a top-four challenge with a team that has a blend of youth and experience.
Academy product Harry Kane is their main goal threat, while the likes of Dele Alli and Eric Dier have captured the imagination this year.
What Pochettino has achieved in a short space of time is remarkable. He's re-energised a club that has been raided for its top talent in recent years and used the money from the sale of Gareth Bale and Luka Modric to the detriment of the squad.
Successive Spurs managers invested poorly, and it's taken Pochettino's emphasis on youth to right those wrongs.
When we consider Chelsea are back-to-back FA Youth Cup winners and also the reigning UEFA Youth League champions, it's a damning indictment that we're not seeing more faith shown in those young players.
Why aren't they being filtered through to the first team?
Bamford wasn't part of those successes, but he's ahead of Dominic Solanke and Tammy Abraham in his development. He's made plenty of noise in his loan spells away from the club and needs an opportunity to make Chelsea his future.
We're not talking promoting Bamford over a move for Robert Lewandowski here—that really would be folly. As far as elite strikers go, there aren't any on the market, especially not in January.
Instead, it's about strengthening this Chelsea squad with a player who's earned his right. Why purchase a backup striker when they already have one?
If by May Bamford has failed to impress, Chelsea will have their answer as to whether or not he's good enough for them in the long term. But then look at the other side of the coin: Were Bamford to succeed, Chelsea's youth policy will take a considerable leap forward.
They stand to gain much more than they will lose in Bamford.
Garry Hayes is Bleacher Report's lead Chelsea correspondent. All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Follow him on Twitter @garryhayes
