Report: 'Fantastic' Leeds player has been doing extra fitness training on holiday, ready for pre-season now

By Sam Preston

Leeds United striker Patrick Bamford is now fully fit and recovered from the foot injury which ended his season early.

The Athletic report that the England international is now 100 per cent fit and raring to go for Jesse Marsch’s first pre-season in charge at Elland Road.

Bamford has been doing extra fitness work during his holiday to help him come back for the new campaign in peak condition.

He has undertaken a fitness regime through the summer as he seeks to have a better season than he endured last time around.

Bamford is now fully fit

As well as doing his fitness programme, Bamford has also been doing some technical work on his finishing with James Scowcroft.

Scowcroft is a former Leicester striker who has worked with Bamford as a finishing coach since Leeds’ promotion from the Championship in 2020.

All of this underlines Bamford’s desire to improve and get back to the level he was at in his first Premier League season at Elland Road.

And he must eventually be hoping he can get even better than that, and really help Marsch’s Leeds revolution in whatever way he can.

Bamford has been hailed as ‘fantastic‘ by Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville for his movement, which he said troubled Virgil van Dijk, widely regarded as the world’s best central defender.

And if he can get back to his best, he must have one eye on Gareth Southgate’s England squad ahead of the World Cup in Qatar.

Injuries have hampered him there, but he was namechecked by Southgate in March, and if he is scoring goals in the Premier League by the time the squad is announced in November, he will give himself a chance.