One of the things that resonates in Luke Ayling’s recent Instagram posts, or those of him with the Championship title in 2020, is the breed of character around him.
That squad did not lack much in the Championship, personality least of all. Ayling was a mature and canny cove, and so were the players who show up in his photos: Stuart Dallas, Mateusz Klich, Liam Cooper and more. Pablo Hernandez could nutmeg opponents from 10 yards away but offered a thousand times more than sexy trick shots. Gaetano Berardi cut a firebrand on the grass but was a stickler for discipline behind the scenes. Their head coach Marcelo Bielsa was adverse to leaving anything to chance but he left his dressing room to run itself because it needed no interference; good types, a natural hierarchy and, crucially, streetwise individuals.
That was then and on Wednesday, Ayling continued the long goodbye to a crop of footballers who proved the point that the hardest thing about ecstasy in sport is that no one can ever truly revisit it or feel again what they felt at the time. This is 2024 and Ayling is 32. Leeds are going for promotion again and if it happens for a second time, it will be done differently. The old leadership group has been breaking up. Younger heads are being asked to guide them to the line. Another six months and the remaining remnants of 2020 might be those who were virtual babies when Bielsa first took them on.
Bielsa did not bank on experience in the way that, say, Neil Warnock has en route to his promotions. Leeds’ bench could be exceptionally young and Bielsa’s policy was that if academy talent could fit into gaps in the roll-call, there was no need or justification for recruiting externally. But the spine was emotionally rigid, and whatever else Leeds are under Daniel Farke, they are fairly wet behind the ears in comparison and running on the exuberance of youth. Farke said as much as he outlined the reasons Ayling had gone.
That exuberance, though, is not selling Leeds short, or not yet. They went past the 50-point mark by going to Cardiff City and avoiding the pitfalls of previous away days that went against them. An early goal from Patrick Bamford, his third in three games, made Cardiff’s low block obsolete before it could frustrate. A targeted, vibrant effort to turn the screw ensured that Cardiff were unable to clamber back up the rope, conceding again to Dan James after half an hour and Georginio Rutter with two minutes left.
Bamford made it three goals in three games in the 3-0 win over Cardiff(George Wood/Getty Images)
The sort of fixture Leeds had been grappling with awkwardly fell into place perfectly, becoming a test of sensible game management. Opponents this season have rarely been so limited or so easily smashed, and it made no difference that Crysencio Summerville drilled a late penalty against a post.
It made the point that had to be made, which Farke tried to make verbally on Thursday, not in explaining Ayling’s loan to Middlesbrough but by outlining publicly while Charlie Cresswell was being ostracised from matchdays. The decisions are his to take, coaches are hostages to results but influenced by them too and more often than not, Leeds have delivered them this season.
No Cresswell meant no centre-back on the bench at Cardiff, and Ethan Ampadu linked with Joe Rodon in the centre of defence, but Cardiff were as threatening as a water pistol. Perhaps Farke was fortunate in that respect. Or he is calling it right. In the case of Cresswell, it feels like nothing less than the age-old battle over who calls the shots between manager and footballer.
Cresswell is out of favour (George Wood/Getty Images)
Ayling’s exit from Leeds was tinged with disappointment for him, and not just because of an era ending. Even when Farke first told him that he would become more bit-part, the right-back’s intention was to stay for the rest of the season.
There were noises made about a short extension to a deal that expired in the summer. But latterly it was clear that there would be no extended terms, and Ayling’s fleeting appearance in last weekend’s FA Cup win over Peterborough United was his cue to ask to leave. If there was no new contract and no substantial game time in a fixture like Sunday’s, the point of him hanging around was hard to see. Leeds duly agreed to the percentage of wages Middlesbrough were offering to pick up.
Somewhere down the line, though not in this window, Cooper is highly likely to follow, with all the indications that his deal will not be renewed in May. He is more involved under Farke than Ayling was, a presence on matchdays if not routinely in Leeds’ line-up, but there has been a conscious decision that most of the remaining members of Bielsa’s title-winners are too far beyond the peak of their powers.
The eye test backs some of that feeling up, even if Ayling’s debut for Middlesbrough at Millwall drew good reviews, but it is evident that within Leeds’ squad, experience lost is not being compensated by experience found in the transfer market. Some in Farke’s camp are more journeyed than others, admittedly, but his is not a been-there-done-that dressing room.
There is an argument to say that Bielsa’s dressing room, pre-promotion, did not have that hue. Many of those who achieved what they did under him were registering those achievements for the first time. The magic of the Bielsa era, in footballing terms, was him taking the Aylings of the world to benchmarks they had not necessarily hit before, and it is not as if Farke’s policies have not broadly worked. But Farke spoke enough pre-Christmas about the atmospheric value of having Cooper, Ayling and others of that ilk on the scene to deduce that Ayling’s twinkle and broad shoulders might be missed. A tribute to him was waiting yesterday when Rutter scored and celebrated with the air guitar that Ayling once played.
What was true of the Bielsa era, though, was that his more veteran players were not only in the building but playing too, established as key figures rather than babysitters. When that changed, he was not excessively sentimental either, even with someone like Hernandez. Farke’s selection policy, in fairness, has been fairly transparent since the last pieces of his jigsaw fell into place in the last few days of August and in league games, he has not leaned heavily on the more experienced crop. Bamford is back and scoring — his scrambled tap-in yesterday the yin to the yang of his Puskas Award winner-elect at Peterborough — but that has taken until January. The young team, by and large, have seen Farke right.
His starting line-up at Cardiff had an average age of 24, the entire squad an average of 23, and Farke’s experience of two titles at Norwich City tells him that somewhere in the run-in, the pressure will hike up dramatically.
Who can say, when that happens, if he will wish he had more Aylings to keep the equilibrium level. Or if, on the contrary, the squad will prove durable regardless, propelled forward by the wealth of natural talent in it. But after saying goodbye to Ayling, pulling rank with Cresswell and leaving himself with nothing spare defensively except Sam Byram at Cardiff, it had to go as it went in Wales: a switched-on demolition job in which control on the pitch matched the expressions of control off it.
(Photo: Rutter pays tribute to Ayling after his goal. Athena Pictures/Getty Images)
