Chelsea signed 20-year-old Patrick Bamford from Nottingham Forest for £1.5 million in 2012 and he is, in my opinion, one of the Blues’ best young talents. He has not played for the first team but has played for the reserves, as well as having loan spells at MK Dons and Derby County.
The young forward had an extremely impressive loan spell at MK Dons, scoring 18 goals in 37 league games. I saw him play against Leyton Orient last season and he was quite simply the best player on the pitch. He is certainly one of the finest finishers that League One has seen, although some may say that division is nowhere near the standard of the Premier League and he needs to prove himself at a higher level.
After his loan spell at MK Dons, Bamford did then take it to the next step, as he was loaned out to promotion-chasing Derby County in the Championship. He had a very productive spell with the Rams, scoring eight goals in 21 league games.
I think that Bamford has all of the attributes to be a world class player. As mentioned, his finishing is first class, his ball control is superb, he has great pace, and something that League One and Championship defenders could not handle was his dribbling. He has very close ball control when moving with the ball, making it very difficult to steal possession from him.
I think that the 20-year-old deserves a chance in the Premier League with Chelsea, as it is pointless to just keep loaning him out to lower leagues. The youngster has done the job in those leagues and so he deserves his chance, even if he gets 20 minutes off the bench every few games to get him used to the feeling of playing that standard of football. I think that if Bamford is given his chance he will impress and he could be one of the best strikers in the world in a few seasons time. That may be a bold statement, but watch this space.