Patrick Bamford made his long-awaited England debut last Sunday on his 28th birthday before being substituted for Harry Kane.
Bamford had a quiet afternoon due to little service coming his way. England played a very slow possession based style which didn’t compliment the high energy movement of Bamford. Bamford was constantly making runs but wasn’t getting the ball as midfielders opted to pass to the full backs instead, and vice versa.
BBC pundit Matthew Upson has claimed Bamford had ‘quite a difficult afternoon’ and theorised that playing against a team who sit as deep as Andorra could be why. “is it harder playing against teams like this as a centre-forward?”
Bamford was eventually brought off at 1-0 in the second half as part of a triple substitution in which Harry Kane, Mason Mount and Jack Grealish were brought on. Goals from Harry Kane, Jesse Lingard and Bukayo Saka propelled England to a 4-0 victory over Andorra.
Bamford could have been helped by the introductions of Mount and Grealish, but Gareth Southgate decided to take him off as well. We hope to see Bamford in the next qualifier.
