OH , LET IT GO! I’M SO SORRY
Bamford still gets trolled over THAT dive against Villa two years ago despite apologising for his bad behaviour
PATRICK BAMFORD claims he still gets trolled over his dive to get Aston Villa’s Anwar El Ghazi sent off two years ago.
Bamford went down pretending he had been hit in the face by El Ghazi during the melee following Leeds’ hugelycontroversial goal in the 1-1 draw at Elland Road, with the Villa striker dismissed (the incident plays out, above).
El Ghazi’s red card was overturned on appeal and Bamford was hit with a two-match ban for deceiving the referee.
The Leeds striker has apologised for his behaviour and says he still gets mocked on social media.
Tonight will be the first time the sides have met at Elland Road since that infamous clash and Bamford said: “I still get sent flipping GIFS and memes of me falling on the floor from that game and I’m, ‘Come on, let it go, I’m so sorry’.”
Villa were incensed by Mateusz Klich’s goal and had stopped playing, thinking Leeds were going to knock the ball out of play because Jonathan Kodjia was down injured.
Marcelo Bielsa won a FIFA Fair Play award for ordering Leeds to let Villa equalise straight from the restart to calm the volatile situation, and Bamford (right) says there has been a real rivalry between the clubs since.
“It seems like over the last couple of years we have become rivals with Villa, I don’t know why,” he told the latest edition of the
Official
Leeds United Podcast. “Maybe it’s that whole thing I did with that stupid dive, and we had to give them a goal and that kicked it off.
“That was one game, surely you let go of that?”
Three of Bamford’s 13 Premier League goals came against Villa at Villa Park in October, and he has been denied a couple more by contentious VAR offside calls against Wolves and Crystal Palace.
Bamford feels football’s lawmakers need to review VAR and the offside rule because too many goals are being disallowed by hairline decisions. “Looking at mine at Wolves, the linesman gives it offside,
you go to VAR and have a look at it and the line drawn to my knee seems to be diagonal, and the line drawn to the guy’s heel seems to be straight down,” he added.
“There’s no consistency and how can you be 100 per cent certain?
“The camera angle was not parallel to where I was on the pitch, it’s looking back.
“I was flicking through Twitter trying to find a still of the image and saw one guy tweet that if you are fouled outside the penalty box, and your feet are outside the penalty box but your knee is inside, it’s not a penalty, it’s a free-kick.
“So if your feet are behind the offside line, then surely you should use the same rule.
“It’s been brought in to try to make the game better, but everyone wants to see goals, and I think it’s denying more goals than it’s giving.”
A PENNY for Frank Lampard’s thoughts?
Since Thomas Tuchel took over as Chelsea manager, in all competitions he is unbeaten in eight games, winning six, drawing two with 10 goals scored and only two conceded.
They have been well-organised, defensively sound and, in league games, have commanded nearly 75 per cent possession.
I thought Tuchel (below) was wrong to haul off Callum Hudsonodoi at Southampton after only half an hour and question his attitude – but he picked the England winger against Atletico Madrid and he responded well, so that’s a tick in the box for his man-management.
The basic difference between Tuchel’s Chelsea and Lampard’s model is in the goals conceded column.
There is not as much flair about the German’s team – they are clinical and hard to beat – but at clubs of Chelsea’s stature it is more important to win than to entertain and fall short.
I was impressed with their Champions League victory against Atletico, and Tuchel reached the final with Paris Saint-germain last season.
The Blues could go a long way in this year’s competition and, if they do, Lampard will deserve credit for building the team and providing the new coach with the platform.
Manchester United will be another test of Tuchel’s solidity and Chelsea still have an outside chance of finishing above them – and every chance of finishing in the top four.