Luke Ayling’s omission marks emotional but necessary change at Leeds United — The Athletic 1/12/23

By Phil Hay

David Prutton tells the story of how it ended for him at Leeds United, or how the penny dropped about his non-existent place in the club’s pecking order.

No longer playing and no longer making the matchday squad, he was asked to do the half-time entertainment during a game at Elland Road. This was what he had been reduced to, he realised; a court jester, to use his phrase, whose only remaining purpose was to amuse the crowd by joking about his haircut. Prutton, who has a certain way with words, declined with thanks. “I was totally pissed off,” he said.

Luke Ayling is nothing like as surplus or disregarded as Prutton felt he was in 2010, but it is an inescapable fact of football that what Prutton experienced comes to them all. One day you’re a right-back who appears every week and deserves to. Then, much more quickly than you would like, you find that sentiment cannot protect your place, even at a club like Leeds who have long been sentimental about footballers of Ayling’s ilk. Here, in sporting form, are the sands of time falling.

The guard at Elland Road is changing and the truth is that one day it had to. In analysing Leeds’ previous two seasons, the club were guilty of tying themselves to the old guard a little too tightly, which is not to deflect the multitude of more telling failures in other departments. But 32-year-old Ayling and others like him were the core of the dressing room, trusted by coaches and the board.

They were the leadership group who spoke for the squad and negotiated on matters like wage reductions during the Covid-19 pandemic. They were the men Marcelo Bielsa built upon and, in practice, those who remain still have seniority and influence. But, as athletes in all forms know, no one lasts forever.

On Wednesday, even before Daniel Farke spoke about him, it was apparent that Ayling’s omission from Leeds’ win over Swansea City was a matter of preference rather than fitness. Djed Spence was available to make the bench and even without him, Farke had been finding alternatives to Ayling at right-back for a while.

Ayling has not looked like the answer in that position this season. He has looked more exposed, and it is fair to assume that if Farke was not thinking the same, he would not be leaving the defender with no other role than to gee up the dressing room before kick-off. Part of a head coach’s responsibility is to manage decline, professionally but respectfully.

One of the regrets of the Bielsa era was that when Pablo Hernandez began going over the hill, their relationship became awkward. It was evident in Farke’s comments about Ayling on Wednesday that he does not want the duty of picking the most appropriate line-up to humiliate or ostracise Ayling. Farke needs older heads in his camp. He has several who have won promotion before and there will, hopefully, come a point this season where Leeds have that chance again; where that know-how is called upon.

Farke was asked how feasible it was that Ayling would stick around until his deal ends in May if, more often than not, he is not even on the bench. On that question, the German did not really answer. But there is value in the presence of people who have been there and done it. Farke alludes to this by referencing the input of his senior players constantly.

The German does not appear to be prone to sentimentality. He was the reason Adam Forshaw, another member of that old leadership group, did not re-sign for Leeds in the summer, despite the midfielder and the club arranging the terms of a new deal on reduced wages. Farke was aware of Forshaw’s injury record and said he would prefer to see him train with Leeds first to gauge how well Forshaw would stand up to the intensity of his sessions. Forshaw, understandably, was reluctant to do so without the promise of a contract when other clubs were talking about taking him. Leeds signed other midfielders. Forshaw moved to Norwich City.

Liam Cooper, in his testimonial year but six months from the expiry of his deal, is yet to be told if he will be offered an extension. Stuart Dallas, another player who could become a free agent in 2024, has not appeared for more than 18 months and is bright enough to realise that after so long recovering from a fractured femur, Leeds will not tie him down on a whim. Even the signing of Sam Byram on a free transfer, the acquisition of someone Farke knew from Norwich, was not borne of sentiment or loyalty. Byram came in for a trial with no guarantees over the summer. Leeds would not have committed to him had his body caused concern, though they are very pleased now that they did. “He must be one of the best free transfers in the history of Leeds United,” Farke said on Wednesday.

Leeds have rarely spent a better £200,000 than the fee they invested in Ayling. He has played a phenomenal amount of football for them, and there are a few tales about him that resonate. One is that when Leeds were feeling the heat in the second half of their promotion season in 2019-20, he told the club’s media department that if ever a player was required to speak to the press, he would do it. He would take the hit and suck up difficult questions.

As an example of where humility gets you in football, when Ayling was young, he decided to leave Arsenal and sign for Yeovil Town. It transpired that he was an archetypal Bielsa player: committed to getting better and making his club better. Farke merely has fresher and younger options, and it is in Leeds’ collective interest to use them.

One of Prutton’s frustrations was that when he went to Simon Grayson, Leeds’ then-manager, to ask why he was so far from the picture, Grayson could not give him a clear answer. Farke appears to have been straight with Ayling and for all that he joked that the defender “probably wanted to kill me” when he found out about Wednesday’s squad, Ayling will appreciate the honesty. “In terms of football character, of team-mate character, Luke is second to none and probably the best player I’ve ever worked with,” Farke said. Which was very much the right way to talk about him.

Ayling, after more than 250 appearances, owes Leeds little. He might find a way back into the side but for his reputation, it makes no odds. Leeds don’t owe him a great deal either, except their appreciation and the thing wanted by every footballer with a fine service record: a dignified end to the best chapter in their career.