Middlesbrough are about to find out whether Patrick Bamford can repeat the form of his previous Teesside spell after reportedly agreeing a fee for the Chelsea striker that could rise to £10m.
The 23-year-old scored 17 league goals during a loan spell with Aitor Karanka's team in the 2014/15 season, finishing the campaign as Boro's top scorer as they made it to the play-off final.
https://twitter.com/LowQualityRegen/status/820949640921104385
However, his form in front of goal since then has been less than impressive, with the England Under-21 international failing to find the net during loan spells in the Premier League with Crystal Palace, Norwich City and Burnley.
In fact, not only has he failed to score, but he has barely even got onto the pitch.
Bamford started twice for Norwich in the league, while he was restricted to substitute appearances for Palace and Burnley, with his longest runout for the latter coming in the 3-0 defeat to Leicester City, when he was handed a whole 11 minutes by Sean Dyche.
His total for the three clubs are as follows:
Crystal Palace - 226 minutes (119 in the league), 0 goals
Norwich - 236 minutes (all league), 0 goals
Burnley - 34 minutes (all league), 0 goals
Bamford during one of his 34 minutes on the pitch for Burnley (photo credit: Ben Hoskins/Getty Images)
Now, we've crunched the numbers, and that means Middlesbrough will be paying Chelsea more than £25,000 for every minute Bamford has spent on a Premier League pitch (excluding stoppage time).
As for the pounds-per-goal rate, we found that harder to calculate based on the fact that you can't divide by zero - not the most common of problems for a striker. The same goes when calculating the cost per Chelsea appearance, as he is yet to don their famous blue shirt in a competitive fixture.
The reaction to the deal, and to the price tag, has been...well, just take a look.
https://twitter.com/aswbrowne/status/820986917244178432
https://twitter.com/jdmcpfc1990/status/820969522194710528
https://twitter.com/benny_berger/status/821006388512129028
https://twitter.com/GeorgeCates/status/820973018478419968
Still, there's at least a little bit of optimism from Boro fans, who have seen what he was capable of at a lower level.
We'll likely be able to make our minds up based on his contribution over the rest of the season. Let's see if he's still stuck on 0 Premier League goals by May.
https://twitter.com/boroform/status/820995176894255104
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