Silver linings were in short supply on Saturday at Brentford, but one long-awaited reunion provided some solace for Leeds United. Luke Ayling’s first-team absence ended at just short of four months and in the space of 21 minutes he put his hand up for an immediate recall.
When the vice-captain went steaming through Gabriel Martinelli by one of the Emirates Stadium corner flags, it was a red-card challenge which summed up a poor season for him. A fourth-bottom outfit is never going to have too many heroes, but having set such lofty standards in previous Marcelo Bielsa campaigns, Ayling was among those with the starkest collapse in form.
Knee surgery and an elongated close season gave the number two a hard reset on 21/22. While the bulk of the squad was flying out to Australia together, Ayling was at Thorp Arch, pushing through with his rehabilitation work alongside fitness coach Ruben Crespo.
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While Ayling was rebuilding himself after surgery, Leeds were putting the finishing touches on a £10m move for a new right-back. Ayling has seemed like the undisputed number one right-back at the club for years, but Rasmus Kristensen’s arrival put that status in peril.
Ayling recently turned 31, his contract is expected to expire at the end of this season and it’s impossible for him to look at Kristensen without feeling the club is planning a transition. The former Arsenal trainee has been in this game long enough to know there is no sentimentality in football, and once you’re beyond 30, clubs have to plan for the future.
A cornerstone of United’s Championship title success and subsequent ninth-place joy ride, Ayling would have been gutted to watch the Dane’s arrival from the sidelines, unable to defend his shirt. He’s a fighter and must have had to hold himself back, retaining some patience on his critical road back from going under the knife.
At long last, the shackles were taken off on Saturday and Ayling was set loose. You can ask Ben Mee just how excited the comeback kid was.
Virtually four months of frustration were poured into Ayling’s leap for a high ball near the halfway line, where his nose met Mee’s head and he came crashing back down to Earth in more ways than one. Thankfully, his return was not curtailed at five minutes and he went on to deliver the kind of full-back display supporters have waited all season for.
The key caveat to any analysis of Ayling in Hounslow is the state the game was in. Leeds were cutting loose and chasing this match at the expense of defensive solidity. Ayling had a licence to storm forward.
Ayling’s assist for Marc Roca was the headline stat, but his three successful dribbles in 21 minutes caught the eye. By contrast, in 450 minutes Kristensen has attempted three dribbles and only completed one of them successfully.
Yes, the aforementioned game state cannot be forgotten, but that’s an outrageous comparison when you consider how much time the Dane has had on the field this season. Ayling’s hand his up and he’s waving at Marsch.
Every time he overlapped he seemed to impact the game with a carry or a sharp pass. Three accurate crosses brought potency too, even when you see he had by far the worst passing accuracy of any outfield Leeds player at Brentford.
It’s a call for Marsch to make. The head coach will have loyalty to Kristensen, who himself deserves time to get up to speed in this league with this system for the Whites, but this is the kind of quality problem top-flight squads need.
Let’s not forget Cody Drameh either, who was better than solid in his first Premier League start since last December. The 20-year-old will hope he at least proved he too can hold his own in this three-way tussle.
Ayling will just be pleased, and relieved, to see he is a part of any kind of selection tussle once again after that surgery and rehab process all footballers, understandably, are cautious about.
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