It's been a difficult couple of seasons on the pitch for Patrick Bamford. The former Chelsea prospect, who qualifies to play for the Republic of Ireland and played for them at under 18 level, had a smashing year at Middlesbrough in 2014-15, scoring 17 goals in 39 games, winning the Championship Player of the Year award and prompting calls for Martin O'Neill to try and coax him into the Irish set-up. Since then however, he has had three unsuccessful loan spells at Crystal Palace, Norwich and Burnley - failing to get into double digits of appearances for any of them - and has now returned to the Riverside Stadium, this time on a permanent deal.
Bamford has given an interview to Ian Ladyman of the Daily Mail and has shed some light on why things didn't work out at one of those clubs, Burnley. Bamford says that his upbringing (which included private schooling and violin lessons) seemed to work against him with Clarets manager Sean Dyche:
Dyche said that because I had come through at Chelsea – and because of the way I had been brought up - I had never had to work for anything.
My background is irrelevant and I didn't even come through at Chelsea. I started at Nottingham Forest cleaning toilets and scrubbing the shower floors.
So saying I didn't want it enough was upsetting. I went home every night wondering how to get in the Burnley team. It was: 'You've been brought up nicely, had everything handed to you'.
Is that what people think just because I went to private school and played instruments?
It would be a pity if Bamford's upbringing worked against him, but wouldn't be overly surprising. If Chelsea left-back Graeme Le Saux used to receive stick for reading The Guardian, it isn't beyond the boundaries of possibility that getting violin lessons made Bamford the subject of a few jibes.
Dyche's comments are nothing new. He is, after all, a proper "football man" - and what self-respecting FM would ever play the violin?
