The man sitting here today is, in the parlance of modern-day football, an assists king. Only two players from Europe’s top five leagues — England, Spain, Italy, France and Germany — have more than him this season. One is Kevin De Bruyne, the other Lionel Messi.
And the most extraordinary detail is that the player in question is a defender.
Leif Davis is no ordinary full-back, bearing in mind his 14 assists for Ipswich Town is twice the number provided by Martin Odegaard, Mohamed Salah, Jack Grealish or Bruno Fernandes two divisions above.
Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson, two of the players who have done the most to redefine the modern full-back role, have eight each for Liverpool.
In League One, meanwhile, a 23-year-old left-back – signed from Leeds United for £1.5million last summer – has set up a goal, on average, every three games for a team that has just won promotion to the Championship.
“It’s a big part of my game,” says Davis. “I saw a stat the other day that I’d created the most chances in the EFL. I was delighted when I looked down the list and realised they were all, apart from me, attacking players. I was the only defender. I just love getting up and down the pitch, trying to create goals.”
Only three players in English football have more assists than Davis — De Bruyne and two players in League Two, Owen Moxon at Carlisle United and Elliot Watt at Salford City. All three are midfielders.
In total, Davis created 132 chances for a team that finished the season with 101 goals, the highest in England’s top four divisions.
His game is built on stamina, versatility and, above all, a level of skill that makes it understandable why some Leeds fans suspect the club should have persevered with him and continued the work their former manager, Marcelo Bielsa, had started.
Bielsa gave Davis his first-team debut a week before his 19th birthday and trusted him, after Leeds had won promotion 18 months later, against the most challenging opponents. Davis, a boyhood Newcastle United season-ticket holder, quickly emerged as a player of real potential.
“My debut in the Premier League was against Manchester City at Elland Road. I was marking Bernardo Silva. Raheem Sterling, Phil Foden, Kevin De Bruyne were playing. A year before, I was playing these guys on Playstation and dreaming of being in the Premier League.”
But his time at Leeds came to an end. Bielsa was sacked in February last year while Davis was on loan at Bournemouth, where he helped Scott Parker’s team win promotion to the top division. Jesse Marsch was appointed as Leeds manager. Junior Firpo, formerly with Barcelona, was the first-choice left-back and, after a long conversation with Marsch on a pre-season trip to Australia, Davis took a calculated gamble to move on.
“It was upsetting. I remember having a tear in my eye because of all the friends I had made at Leeds. It was a hard decision for me. But I needed to play regular games. It was no good for me to be sitting on the bench in the Premier League.”
It softened the blow that he quickly came to realise Ipswich had appointed a modern-thinking manager who, like Bielsa, could have a big impact on his career.
Kieran McKenna, previously Manchester United’s assistant manager, told him everything he wanted to hear: that he would be the first-choice left-back, that the shape of the team would get the best out of him, and that they would work on the parts of his game that needed improvement.
“It was like a switch that changed my mind instantly,” says Davis. “I knew it was the right decision. Since then, everything he said to me has come true.
“I can thank him for all the assists because of the way he has helped me improve in the final third of the pitch. He has helped me so much in my decision-making and knowing which pass to choose. I’m not just getting my head down and crossing.
“A lot of people have asked me what he is like compared to Marcelo Bielsa. He’s exactly the same. His demands in training, his intensity of training, the way he wants to make everyone better.
“He wants the players to be really fit. ‘If you don’t want to run,’ he says, ‘you might as well not be here.’ That suits me because I love running. He’s developed me in so many other ways – my heading, my one-v-one defending. Everything has worked out just as I hoped.”
At Leeds, Bielsa wanted to convert Davis into a centre-half or, at the very least, turn him into a player who could happily switch between the two positions. Davis had joined the club via Morecambe’s youth system and, in one under-23s’ match at Barnsley, Bielsa experimented with him in a central role for the last part of the match. That was enough. ‘You’re with me and the first-team now,” he told the teenager afterwards.
“Marcelo liked how I was on the ball, my passing ability,” says Davis. “I always saw myself as a left-back but working with him was like, ‘Wow, this is another level.’ It was incredible how he improved footballers. If you can’t learn under him, you won’t learn from anyone.”
Bielsa seemed to be a big admirer if you have seen the three-second clip that went viral from a pre-season game against Cagliari in 2019. Davis had sprinted 40 yards to stop a ball going out of play. His perseverance led to a scoring chance for Leeds. “Very good, Davis!” can be heard from the touchline. Bielsa was impressed. And it has stuck.
“When I was walking off after Ipswich’s last game of the season at Fleetwood, I could hear people shouting, ‘Very good, Davis!’ I get it all the time on Twitter. I’ve even had it just walking down the street, young lads seeing me and shouting, ‘Very good, Davis!’ I can’t get away from it. It’s probably going to be with me forever, but it always makes me smile.”
🙌 Very good Davis! pic.twitter.com/ytiFW3GIzW
— Leeds United (@LUFC) November 11, 2019
The latest round of “Very good, Davis!” messages accompanied the footage of him singing Lewis Capaldi’s “Bruises” at the club’s end-of-season dinner. Very good, to say the least. Davis’ singing is almost as finely tuned as the set-piece deliveries that have led to him being named in League One’s team of the year.
Big tune @Leifdavis_3 ! Smashed it. 👊💙🚜 #itfc pic.twitter.com/LcGeEt4kOW
— James Rice (@ri5eyboy) May 5, 2023
He will almost certainly hear more of the same if he gets the chance, as planned, to head back to Newcastle before the end of the Premier League season and take in a match at the stadium where, as a boy, he has fond memories of watching Alan Pardew’s team in the Europa League.
Davis was brought up in Whitley Bay, a hotbed of Newcastle support, and counted Demba Ba, Papiss Cisse and Yohan Cabaye among his first football heroes. His season ticket was on Level 7 of the Leazes Stand, next to the away fans, and if you know St James’ Park it is tempting to think this is where he built up his stamina reserves (“My God, so many flights of stairs …”)
He also intends to go back to Leeds in the coming weeks. “Everything happened so quickly with the move, I never had the chance to say goodbye to everyone properly.”
In the meantime, this rising talent can be added to the long list of players who have come through Wallsend Boys’ Club on the production line that has nurtured some of the more talented footballers to come from the north east.
Alan Shearer and Peter Beardsley were among them, Michael Carrick another. Many others, too. All, you imagine, would approve of a left-back with more assists than just about every elite midfielder, winger or forward in Europe’s top leagues.
(Photo: George Tewkesbury/PA Images via Getty Images)