Wolves 2-3 Leeds United: Days of Ayling - The Square Ball 19/3/22

BILLY BUN

Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman

One important moment in this match of moments, in a sport of moments being taken to ridiculous extremes by Leeds United this season, happened just as the post-cartwheel euphoria of Luke Ayling’s winner was dying down, on the pitch if not in the stands. As the scrum of celebrating players dispersed, Ayling stayed locked in an embrace with Stuart Dallas that was more than a well done for scoring a big goal. It was a hug between friends, going back years, a private moment in a public place, deep and true, turning to delight when Ayling realised Kalvin Phillips was there with them. Luke’s reaction to him was a ‘What are you doing here?!’ to an unexpected wedding guest flown in from the other side of the world, or sprinted from the other side of the pitch, either way, someone beloved who shouldn’t have been there but who made everything better by making the effort.

The story of this ludicrous comeback win goes way back that way, into ancient history from long before United’s bright start in Wolverhampton, Rodrigo and Pat Bamford’s early missed chances, the accumulation of casualties and two goals conceded, a second yellow for Raul Jimenez that hobbled Illan Meslier but gave Leeds a chance to fight back. Stuart Dallas joined Leeds in summer 2015. Kalvin Phillips was already there, a nineteen year old struggling to emulate Lewis Cook or Ronaldo Vieira. Luke Ayling joined a year later in summer 2016. It’s nearly six years since those three found each other at Thorp Arch, and how much they’ve changed is best described by looking at Luke Ayling’s hair: it’s still exactly the same. Hashtag Team Manbun until the end.

I still don’t know when that end might be. This season has felt like the end of a lot: Marcelo Bielsa, our three year rise, our cultural insulation from the Premier League’s worst excesses, the post-promotion survival planning, maybe even the ownership. Because football doesn’t stop, all those ends mean new beginnings, but that doesn’t lessen the grief of watching Bielsa leave with tears in his eyes. Or the hurt of watching Stuart Dallas and Luke Ayling in recent weeks, even for Wolves’ opening goal in this game, and thinking, we’re going to have to move on soon.

This game took us back to feeling like soon can wait. Leeds are 16th in the Premier League, not safe from relegation, but this win revived the Manchester City beating days of last spring when it felt like this team might end up winning the Champions League. Get Phillips fit again and it still might, why not? This Leeds United team’s great gift to us over the last four years, apart from a promotion we waited sixteen years for, has been the sort of dream inspiring absurdity none of us could have ever hoped to live through but in retrospect can’t imagine being without. Imagine if Leeds United were normal. Leeds United. Normal. No.

The circumstances of this game defy belief. Raphinha, the best player, ruled out with Covid-19. Last weekend’s hero, Joffy Gelhardt, on the bench, after a week without training due to a back injury. Kalvin Phillips travelling as a cheerleader/coach for the bench, not actually fit to play. Pat Bamford, from whom we’ve had just 101 minutes across three appearances since September 17th, missing a huge chance then going off injured again, in tears, after 22 minutes. Robin Koch replaced the often injured Diego Llorente, who went off with a hurt back; then he clashed heads with Mateusz Klich, who went off concussed, laughing ruefully about his swollen cheekbone. Among all this Leeds conceded twice to a team that, once ahead, never gives up its advantages, and the cost of Jimenez’s red card was replacing Meslier with Kristoffer Klaesson, a debutant yet to convince in the Under-23s. Somehow, in the Twitter-melted minds of too-online Wolves and Everton fans, this set up is being presented as a conspiracy to guarantee the win for Leeds. Let’s not dignify that beyond saying there are easier ways of fixing results than this.

Had this game gone to plan Leeds might have won anyway. It’s hard to know what to make of Jesse Marsch’s ‘match plans’ so far, because their ‘clarity’ is being obliterated by circumstances by the end of every game. But Wolves, a stern and self-assured team with quality players and European ambitions, were being pressed into giving up mistakes and chances during the 23 minutes Leeds were at their nearest imitation of full strength. This was better than we’d expected, so of course it soon got worse. Just after Bamford departed, Wolves tore United’s defence apart with a sucker punch goal, and as injuries piled up as stoppage time and Leeds looked bewildered and desperate for the break — the first half was 56 minutes long — Wolves got another goal from a smart free-kick.

The sending off seemed to panic Leeds first. Rodrigo hammered an idiotic short corner in haste straight to Wolves and had to be ordered by Luke Ayling to calm down. Ayling’s demeanour seemed to alarm Wolves the most. United’s solemn determination to make the last half hour their game had them teetering then toppling. The Leeds goals were not easy, or tidy. They were as stupid as everything else in this daft match. Koch’s switch put Ayling in for a great chance, but of course his shot hit the post; Wolves pinballed the rebound around until Jackie Harrison hammered the ball in. The second began in chaos as João Moutinho went late through Dallas’ knee, but Leeds played on while he stayed down and the benches argued; Ayling’s cross was volleyed by Dan James, so close to a great goal, off the bar, then he smashed the rebound — what, sideways? off the keeper? Romain Saïss’ attempted clearance put the ball miles into the air, Sam Greenwood beat him to the drop, and Rodrigo burst onto the ball to grab, smash, score.

The board showing eight minutes of stoppage time was being held up as Harrison lined up a free-kick from wide for what became the winner. Stay with him to understand the goal: on television, the edge of frame and a pitchside microphone captures his anguished turn and cry at himself for overhitting the cross. On the other side of the pitch, another mic picks up Ayling’s voice: he can get to the ball, “Mine, mine!” He does, heading it into play, stumbling off the pitch, running back on from behind everybody’s backs, stealing the ball back, smashing it through the goalie’s legs, and then he’s off to the away end, somehow cool enough and calm enough to fend off his teammates and pull off a fittingly stupid half-cartwheel celebration.

Ayling could stay calm because he’s done all this before. Some players get a moment like this once in a career. Most right-backs get them never. But Leeds United’s return to the top has been punctuated by days of Ayling dragging us there. The closing stages of the 5-4 win at Birmingham were like Ayling’s personal battle with the world. It was Ayling’s cross for Bamford to complete the 3-2 comeback win against Millwall at Elland Road. As Leeds dragged themselves back into title form, Ayling scored the only goal to beat his old club Bristol City, opened scoring in the first five minutes against Hull and Huddersfield. Pablo Hernandez’s all-time goal at Swansea started when Ayling got the ball on the edge of our six yard box, and ran. It was the 89th minute, for crying out loud.

When I write it all down, I think, how could we ask for anything more? But we do, and all season we have, and maybe one of the mistakes of this campaign has been to think all this came easy. We can find a downside in the frenetic endings against Norwich or Wolves by thinking about why the team was in so much trouble in the first place. Isn’t a stoppage time winner ‘papering over the cracks’? The answer is, kinda, yes. But that’s what has been so wonderful since 2018. Players like Luke Ayling, Stuart Dallas and Kalvin Phillips should not have been able to do what they’ve done in this economically top-loaded Premier and Football League that turns teams outside the top six into Sisyphus, forever rolling their heavy stone up the mountain from the bottom. It’s not surprising that, from time to time, and sometimes for a long time, that rock gets too heavy. But it’s amazing how often, in vital moments and wonderful ways, this Leeds team has saved itself.