The young striker is impressing on loan at Middlesbrough but his Spanish lessons suggest he may look further afield if he is frustrated back at Stamford Bridge

Patrick Bamford is said to be learning Spanish. That sounds like a good idea, given that he cannot be certain whether the goals he is scoring on loan at Middlesbrough – two against Ipswich Town last Saturday, followed by the only goal of the match between the Championship’s top two at Derby County on Tuesday – will be enough to persuade José Mourinho to recall him as Chelsea’s second- or third-choice striker next season. If the door remains closed at Stamford Bridge, then an ambitious 21-year-old striker might be viewing a spell abroad as the best option.

Bamford already speaks French and German. Towards the end of his education at Nottingham high school, a fee-paying day school where rugby is the winter game but allowances were made for his need to fulfil his training commitments with Nottingham Forest, he was offered a scholarship to study economics and play soccer at Harvard. When Chelsea came in with a £1.5m offer, he was forced to make a big decision. Middlesbrough are his third loan club in the past three seasons, a not uncommon experience for young players who sign Chelsea contracts.

Few English footballers move abroad of their own volition and those who do so can find the going tough. In Rome on Thursday night, for instance, neither Ashley Cole nor Micah Richards appeared in the all-Italian Europa League match between their two clubs. Last summer Cole opted to continue his post-Premier League career with Roma while Richards, neglected by Manchester City and England, is spending the season on loan with Fiorentina. These are two men at opposite ends of their careers, but neither is flourishing as a result of what seemed like a brave choice. They are not the first to discover that British footballers can find it hard to impose themselves on a foreign football culture, even after growing up surrounded by team-mates from other countries.

Then there is Gareth Bale. Perhaps Bamford was watching Real Madrid’s match against Levante last weekend and noted Bale’s reaction when the Welshman scored the first of his two goals. His face was a blank as he ran towards a corner. His hands flew to his ears, an unmistakable sign that he was deaf to the fans’ applause. As he reached the quadrant, he gave the flag stick a mighty kick. There was no smile, no joining of fingers and thumbs to form the heart that became a familiar sign of celebration at White Hart Lane: just an explosive release of pent-up anger.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gareth Bale scoring against Levante and not being entirely happy.

Bale was reacting to the whistles that had accompanied a scoreless run stretching back to the last week of January. Not such a long time, you might think. And a strange reaction to the man who delivered crucial goals during his first season in Spain, such as those in the Champions League final against Atlético Madrid and, with the astonishing 60m sprint that took him off the playing area to evade Marc Bartra’s attempted barge, in the final of the Copa del Rey against Barcelona.

But the fans come to the Bernabéu for a feast. They demand caviar with every meal and their patience quickly wears thin. Bale always knew he would have to prove himself, particularly after injuries gave him a difficult introduction, but this season he might reasonably have concluded that the need to justify that £80m fee was behind him.

As the highest priced export in the history of the English league, he is in an exposed position. By sustaining his success in the shirt of the reigning European champions, he would provide a measure of proof that British footballers of the current generation are not doomed to wither when exposed to a different climate, as others – although not all – did before them.

The story of how Tom Finney was forced to decline Palermo’s offer in 1952 is well known, but three years later the Charlton forward Eddie Firmani escaped the rigours of the maximum wage to distinguish himself with Sampdoria, Internazionale and Genoa. John Charles became one of Juventus’s immortals in the late 1950s, but Denis Law, Jimmy Greaves and Joe Baker failed to impress when they followed the same path to Serie A. Trevor Francis, Ray Wilkins, Graeme Souness, Gordon Cowans, Paul Rideout and David Platt later performed with credit in Italy but Ian Rush, Paul Elliott, Luther Blissett and Des Walker barely stayed long enough to unpack, while Paul Gascoigne’s three seasons with Lazio, at £22,000 a week, were remarkable mostly for the headlines he generated off the pitch.

Successes on foreign fields included Kevin Keegan, who left Liverpool for Hamburg and twice won the European player of the year award, Tony Woodcock, who made a successful move from Nottingham Forest to Cologne, and Laurie Cunningham, who won the Spanish double at the Bernabéu. Mark Hateley was favourably compared to John Charles after his towering header won a Milan derby and then linked up with Glenn Hoddle at Monaco, while Chris Waddle’s time in Marseille made him an idol of the Velodrome.

Almost unnoticed, the Spurs midfielder Vinny Samways left Everton to make 160 appearances for Las Palmas in La Liga. But when Terry Venables took Gary Lineker and Mark Hughes to Barcelona in 1986, the latter lasted only a season while the former after a bright opening was shown the door by Johan Cruyff at the end of his third year.

Steve McManaman starred in two of Real Madrid’s European Cup victories, and David Beckham fought to justify his presence at the Bernabéu – an achievement that proved beyond Jonathan Woodgate and Michael Owen. Joe Cole, discarded by Liverpool, looked abroad for late-career redemption and found a measure of it with Lille.

Given his established linguistic skills, Bamford might find it easier than most young English players to acclimatise to a life abroad. On the evidence of the first knockout rounds of this season’s Champions League and Europa League, he would certainly be exposing himself to more sophisticated football systems, and success in such an environment might help the international ambitions of a player who has already represented England at age-group levels.

The next few years of his career will make an interesting case study, particularly in comparison with Harry Kane, another 21-year-old goalscorer who has been lucky to encounter a couple of Tottenham managers brave enough to pick him for their first team ahead of more experienced players.

Kane’s arrival in Roy Hodgson’s latest senior squad comes at the expense of a third 21-year-old, Saido Berahino, the refugee from Burundi. Different players with different stories, all trying to catch the eye. Good luck to each of them – or perhaps, in Bamford’s case, buena suerte.