National pride runs deep in the Gray family. A painter in Yorkshire found that out when he went to decorate the house owned by the best of the dynasty, Eddie, rocking up in a van with an England flag on the bonnet. The Leeds United doyen waited until the coast was clear then covered the flag up with one of his Scotland caps.
The Gray family tree is very Celtic, in more ways than one, but the latest of the brood to break through at Leeds, 17-year-old Archie, was born in England, schooled in England and, as a footballer, did not mess about in declaring for England, irrespective of his father, grandfather and Eddie, his great uncle, all representing Scotland. Nor has Archie dragged his heels, jumping from England Under-15s to England Under-19s in the space of two years.
Those chances and pathways matter, as Daniel Farke, his head coach at Leeds, has said more than once in discussing the younger Gray.
Generational gaps have not changed the appeal of caps. But as Leeds have seen in the past two weeks, international commitments pile on the minutes in a calendar that, across the sport as a whole, is more and more of a congested mess. Gray missed his first scheduled stint of England Under-19s duty this season because Leeds did not want to see his body flogged too far. There was a slight injury to Gray, too, with his playing and training loads rising rapidly.
This month, he went away as planned and was worked in the way his club hoped he would not be: three European qualifiers in seven days, 90 minutes played in all three of them.
Two and a bit months into Gray’s first full season and Farke has gone from talking about breaking him in to talking about the challenge of simply not breaking him. Last Thursday was a light recovery session for Gray while most of the squad at Leeds trained at full pelt, nailing down tactics for Norwich City away on Saturday. An unimpressed Farke let England know.
🏴🏴 Archie Gray and Charlie Crew both played a full 90 minutes today, as England and Wales’ U19s saw out a 1-1 draw in their #U19EURO Qualifier pic.twitter.com/DnY3p3Xpeg
— Leeds United (@LUFC) October 14, 2023
Balancing club and international pressures is an old battleground on which competing interests affect players far older and more experienced than Gray, but what happened over the weekend was instructive in showing where the midfielder sits in Farke’s pecking order.
The Leeds boss had every reason to rest Gray against Norwich. His remarks last week, mildly criticising the amount of football hoisted on the kid by England, almost implied that he would. And it was not as if he lacked an alternative at right-back. One particular quote from Farke stood out: “In first-team football, it’s always one choice: three points. It’s a dog-eat-dog business. If a player’s young or old, we play the best players.” And therefore, on Saturday, Gray played.
That 90-minute stint was his fourth in 11 days, a level of strain that always has medical departments tracking physical data closely, looking for the point where a footballer is entering the injury red zone. Gray, visually, was a little leggy in the first half, or leggier than he had against Bristol City a fortnight earlier, and the guarantee of the visit to Carrow Road was that Norwich, for some of the game at least, would come at Leeds more than Bristol City had at Elland Road.
Norwich worked the flanks for an hour. Gray and Sam Byram, across on the other side of the pitch at left-back, were compelled to chase opponents down. On Gray’s flank, it was a logical tactic: to examine his energy levels after match upon match. Players so young are prone to hitting a wall. It happened with Aidy White in 2007, the pace catching up with him after a period in which he had made his first tranche of senior football look a doddle.
Gray’s engine looks very dependable and though the centre of midfield is where his true talent lies, he is maintaining a Leeds tradition of adaptable academy graduates. James Milner was the ‘play anywhere’ prototype, and Fabian Delph and Jonny Howson had stints at full-back before gravitating towards their more natural positions. But Farke went further towards the end of the 3-2 win over Norwich by moving Gray into a back three, in a system that, at 2-1 down, was purposely designed to risk everything. Byram made way as part of the shift to 3-5-2.
Leeds fans with an Archie Gray banner this month (George Wood via Getty Images)
At that point, Farke had to be conscious of whom he was sending on from the bench; of not doing anything, with 20 minutes to go, that tied his hands with substitutions in the closing minutes. All the same, Liam Cooper and Luke Ayling were there to be used, more conventional cogs for a back three. Farke had Byram on the pitch, whom he chose to take off.
Notwithstanding the alternatives, and notwithstanding Gray’s prior schedule, Farke’s preference was to keep him on, and to good effect. Saturday, all round, was a huge compliment to a prospect so young.
There was a chance that the outlook would change away to Stoke City tonight (Wednesday), that Farke would give Gray a breather, although his comments on Tuesday were not those of a coach feeling tempted to rein him in.
It is more likely that when the next international break comes along, Farke’s appreciation of Gray’s ambitions at that level will be countered by another message to England to treat him cautiously and to make sure the priorities are straight.
The German said it last week: if it’s important to win — and it always is in the Championship — a manager plays his best players. And by definition, Gray’s fourth 90 minutes in 11 days tells him that, at 17, and a few months into his first campaign, he already ranks as one of those.
GO DEEPER
Archie Gray: Not long out of the classroom, but well on his way to making grade at Leeds
(Top photo: George Wood via Getty Images)
