Former Nottingham Forest striker Patrick Bamford has warned Leeds United have to learn lessons quickly as they prepare to come up against his old club.
Both teams go into next Monday’s clash at Elland Road without a win in three Premier League games. The Reds suffered a second half collapse to fall 3-2 at home to Bournemouth on Saturday, having previously been toppled by Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City. Their opponents have lost to Brighton & Hove Albion and Brentford, with a draw at Everton sandwiched in between.
Boss Jesse Marsch accused the officials of a “lack of respect” after Ivan Toney’s hat-trick downed his side at the weekend, hitting out at the use of VAR against the Bees. But Bamford, who stepped up his comeback from injury by playing 45 minutes, says improvements are needed ahead of facing Forest, after Leeds got back into the game at 2-1 at half-time, only to lose 5-2.
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“The performance wasn’t where we wanted it to be,” he told the club website. “You always say each game is a learning curve, but we can’t get back into the game and throw it away within seconds.
“It’s naive from us. We have a young team, but we have to learn quickly because you can’t get away with that.
“There are always mistakes in games and more often than not they lead to goals, and that’s what happened with us. We are a young group, and we’ve got to learn from it quickly. It was pretty frustrating.
“People need to become leaders on the pitch, and you don’t become that until you learn. You go through these tough situations and come out the other side of them. We have to work on what we did wrong and try to get better.”
Asked if there was any concern over the team’s recent form, Bamford responded: “No, not at all. I think we’ve actually had a really good start. No wins in three, but there have been games where we’ve drawn and should have won them. I think we’ve just got to write this one off and forget about it, because it was just one of those days.”
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