Sadly Archie Gray refuse to renew his contract with leed United due to……

Archie Gray: Not long out of the classroom, but well on his way to making grade at Leeds

Archie Gray Leeds United

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At Leeds United’s penultimate summer friendly, against Nottingham Forest at Burton Albion’s Pirelli Stadium, a single white kit was laid out in the laundry room before kick-off.

 

There were mannequins around it and beside it, a supermarket trolley containing a chicken and bacon sandwich, just to complete the inauspicious setting. The shirt, No 22, was Archie Gray’s and while the rest of Leeds’ squad filed into their allocated dressing room, the midfielder was left to get ready alone before linking up with the other players on the pitch. The only thing for him to sit on was a metal kit box.

 

Gray was about to feature against Forest, a first-team player not far off making his competitive debut for Leeds, but as a 17-year-old, he was still subject to safeguarding rules requiring him to change in private. Those rules will remain in place until he turns 18 next March, irrespective of the fact nobody watching him play feels like they are looking at a child, the archetypal adult in a boy’s skin.

 

His debut came on Sunday in a 2-2 draw with Cardiff City, the first game of Leeds’ new Championship season and the first time a packed Elland Road was able to see the latest of the Gray family dynasty unleashed. Daniel Farke, United’s head coach, had spoken beforehand about trying not to praise Gray too heavily to avoid making a teenager think he had it cracked too soon, but there was no way of deflecting from the quality of the midfielder’s performance.

 

“If you promise no one tells Archie what I’ve said, then I can tell you: he was outstanding,” Farke said. “You have to keep in mind: first game of the season, sold out Elland Road, the first time more or less in the starting line-up…”

 

 

Gray on the Leeds bench against West Ham last year (Photo: Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)

Gray is not long out of the classroom, a former pupil at St John Fisher Catholic High School in Harrogate who picked up his GCSEs last August, but the formality of safeguarding is in juxtaposition to him maturing rapidly as a footballer. He took himself off for sessions of personal training in Dubai this summer and when he came back for pre-season, staff noticed immediately that he had sprouted again, upwards and outwards. His father, the former Leeds striker Andy, was no shrinking violet, but Gray was outgrowing him and more than ever and looked ready to be properly blooded.

 

That chance would have come earlier had it not been for circumstances. Gray was 15 when he first made the bench for a first-team fixture in December 2021 under former Leeds head coach Marcelo Bielsa, so raw that even Bielsa felt anxious about exposing him like that. An outing at that point would have made him United’s youngest-ever debutant, breaking the record set by Peter Lorimer in 1962.

 

Jesse March, Farke’s predecessor, was minded to use him in the Carabao Cup last season until a virus laid Gray low. It did not help that Gray had just returned from an ankle injury and before long, he fractured a toe by stubbing it accidentally at home. The 2022-23 campaign, a fraught one for Leeds which ended in relegation from the Premier League, kept him in the under-21s.

 

Farke arrived as head coach at the start of July and like Bielsa and Marsch, he picked up on the signals from Gray quickly. As a midfielder, he had everything going for him: cultured passing, the knack of finding space off the ball, goalscoring ability, a streak of leadership — demonstrated by a video of him dragging team-mates back onto the pitch amid the pandemonium of a late equaliser against Cardiff, despite having been substituted shortly beforehand — and physicality which made him look considerably older than 17.

 

He played 93 minutes of Sunday’s meeting with Cardiff, a combative and extremely intense season-opener, and was showing no sign of flagging when Farke replaced him with Sonny Perkins in search of a late equaliser. “I think he wasn’t perfect,” Farke said. “Sometimes there were slight mistakes in his positioning and also in his passing but, overall, for such a young lad, a really top-class performance.”

 

Leeds are short of numbers in midfield and are potentially about to get shorter again with Chelsea increasingly keen to sign Tyler Adams, but it did not feel as if Gray was being picked by default. Farke had paired him with new signing Ethan Ampadu in pre-season and, at its best, the partnership looked good; Ampadu more inclined to sit and protect, Gray given license to push further forward from his position in Farke’s 4-2-3-1. It worked that way on Sunday, too, although as Leeds dominated Cardiff heavily in the second half, both Ampadu and Gray found themselves constantly within range of the visitors’ penalty area.

 

The data amplified Gray’s willingness to receive and use possession. He was fourth for attempted passes and touches and second for carries of the ball. Thirty-two touches in the final third compared to 20 for Ampadu underlined the varied roles they had been given by Farke: one with instructions to hold more often than not, the other more free to join the attack. Leeds needed a heavy supply of possession from their midfield having fallen 2-0 behind and been forced to chase the game. The shot from Crysencio Summerville that snatched a point in the 95th minute was their 25th of the match, fuelled by the constant build-up of pressure in the second half.

 

The contest as a whole threw up good things and bad, positives for Farke in amongst issues he knows he has to address, but Gray’s impact will only serve to make the German think he can depend on him regularly in the Championship. Leeds play Shrewsbury Town in the Carabao Cup tonight, the sort of stage an emerging 17-year-old would normally be reserved for, but the Gray-Ampadu axis will be needed at Birmingham City on Saturday and it is likely Gray is already in the category of players who need to be protected for priority fixtures. The consensus as Elland Road emptied at the weekend was that he genuinely does look that good.

 

Leeds have been aware of that for a long time, which is why he was signed to a professional contract at the earliest possible date, as soon as he turned 17. The rules governing footballers of his age limited United to a certain length of deal (running to 2025), but he is already on the list of names they would happily tie down for longer. Gray changing alone at Burton made the point that the club are dealing with someone extremely young; a prospect they will have to nurture with care.

 

“From tomorrow, he has to keep his head down,” Farke said, the mantra of youth development everywhere. But on Sunday’s evidence, good luck in trying to hold him back.

 

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