Leeds and Daniel Farke are in control – he has full trust in his youthful squad — The Athletic 15/1/24
By Phil Hay
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.
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.
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.