LUKE AYLING: WE KNOW HOW BIG IT IS - Leedsunited.com 20/5/23

Leeds United defender Luke Ayling has spoken to the media ahead of Sunday’s Premier League fixture with West Ham United.

The Whites travel to the London Stadium for the penultimate game of the season, looking to get out of the relegation zone with a positive result.

Ayling, who made his 250th Leeds appearance last weekend against Newcastle United, began by revealing his pride at doing so.

He said: “To play for this club is always a great honour and I’ve done it a few times now!

“I came here seven years ago and I don’t think many people knew who I was and I’ve now managed to play that amount of games, so it has been a very good journey.

“I think our next two games, will be my most important though, out of those 250.”

Ayling also reflected on the recent games against Manchester City and Newcastle United, following the arrival of Sam Allardyce as head coach and looked ahead to Sunday’s match.

“We’ve built from the Manchester City game, it was hard playing against them, but we kept in the game well and kept our shape.

“We took that into Newcastle, knowing it was going to be another tricky game, we scored early and had a chance to go two-nil up, before giving a penalty away soon after.  But we kept in the game and managed to pick up a good point.

“The last two games have been pleasing, in that we’ve stayed in the games even when going behind, we didn’t get anything from Manchester City but we took a lot of confidence from that performance and showed it again last Saturday.

“We’re sticking together, we’ve had a really good two weeks with the new gaffer and we go into these next two weeks confident, we can’t go any lower, so now the only way we have to go is up.

“We will go to West Ham on Sunday and try to win the game, we know how big it is with two games to go.

“We have to win the two games to stay in the league, we have to because it is not in our hands, we will go into the matches, focus on ourselves and try to win the two games.”