Patrick Bamford completed his move from Chelsea to Middlesbrough on Wednesday, returning to the club after a prolific spell at the Riverside Stadium in 2014/15.

As reported by the BBC, the deal was worth about £5.5m to Chelsea but could rise with a number of performance-based clauses in his contract.

Bamford enjoyed by far the best spell of his career at Middlesbrough in that season we mentioned, playing under Aitor Karanka in the Championship.

The ex-England youth international scored a fantastic 19 goals across the season at the age of just 21, making himself a big favourite with Boro fans.

However, he faces an uphill battle to recapture that form given his lack of game time and goals in his time since leaving the North East. As this stat from Opta shows, he's failed to score a competitive goal for over one and half years.

There are of course reasons for that. Most of those 26 appearances were off the bench and his game time has been severely limited.

Still, it demonstrates that he might face an uphill battle to be a success from the off at Boro. He certainly has the talent required to make an impact there, as shown by his previous form at the Riverside, but Boro fans may have to remain patient with their new signing to see the very best from him.

He'll need time to settle in and work his way up to full match fitness and form.

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