Patrick Bamford on verge of joining Middlesbrough after Chelsea accept offer

• Striker leaves Stamford Bridge without ever making a senior appearance
• Transfer fee for the 23-year-old player could rise to as much as £10m

Patrick Bamford is undergoing a medical at Middlesbrough with a view to signing a four-and-a-half-year contract with the Premier League club after Chelsea accepted an initial offer of around £5m for the striker. The transfer fee for the 23-year-old could rise to as much as £10m depending on appearances and various clauses being triggered.

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Bamford leaves Chelsea without ever making a senior appearance for the club he joined from Nottingham Forest for £1.5m five years ago. He has been loaned out to six different clubs, including Middlesbrough, where he scored 19 goals during the 2014-15 season and was named Championship player of the year.

His most recent loan spell was with Burnley, where he played for a total of 34 minutes this season across six substitute appearances. Bamford also saw little action in the previous campaign – he never started a league game during a loan spell with Crystal Palace that was cut short, and five of his seven league appearances for Norwich, during the second half of the 2015-16 season, were from the bench.

With 18 months remaining on his contract at Chelsea and no prospect of breaking through at Stamford Bridge, Bamford was keen to secure a permanent transfer and avoid another loan move. He will hope that a fresh start at Middlesbrough helps to reignite the promising career that has stalled ever since he left the Riverside a little under two years ago.