Leeds United have been unlucky with injuries of late, and the United faithful are complaining about the lack of depth in the squad. The injuries to Kemar Roofe and Patrick Bamford have reinvigorated those demands, but we feel Tyler Roberts did a decent job against Millwall and showed enough to convince that he can lead the line in the future.
The 19-year-old youngster needs more game time to get his confidence up, and a goal would do him a world of good. Against Millwall, he got into the right positions on various occasions but couldn’t apply the finishing touches. United’s manager Marcelo Bielsa also looked satisfied with the youngster’s performance who started his first ever game in the Championship. Bielsa said,”Some people value the strikers when they score a goal. But I prefer to value them taking into account the number of chances they have to score. I think he had three or four chances to score.”
“And if he had scored one goal we would be all saying that he had done a wonderful performance. I think he did a correct performance, a good performance.”- the manager added further.
The former Argentina manager knows that he can’t be too critical of a youngster who doesn’t have much experience in leading the line especially in tough games like these. The good thing was that Roberts was involved in the game and was willing to make those runs in dangerous positions which presented him with decent scoring opportunities. All he needs is a killer instinct in front of goal and slowly but surely the Welshman can be a decent third choice strike option.
The fact that he was willing to take the risk and counted on midfielders to make those passes shows that the youngster reads the game well and knows when to time his runs. Everyone raved about how Roofe would have scored at least one goal from the chances which Roberts got but as Bielsa said, one should also judge a striker by whether he is getting in goal scoring positions in the first place.
The Welsh international has got a bright window of opportunity to establish himself in Bielsa’s eyes and in the United squad, and he should be hungry to prove his worth in the next few games.
The Whites are going to face Preston and Birmingham City at home next, and Roofe is likely to be out of contention for these two games as well. Therefore the attacking onus would once again fall on the 19-year-old youngster, and he would be keen to get things right which he couldn’t at the Den. The signs are there that Roberts can be relied upon in the future.
