Have Leeds United sold the crown jewels with Archie Gray transfer?

Transcript

00:00The Archie Gray thing is one of the most divisive issues I think we've been met with at Leeds in the

00:06last couple of years and there have been some absolute stonkers. My ultimate take on it is

00:10it's a bit of a shame because he's such a talent and Leeds only got one season of him

00:17in the championship at that. I think everyone in their head, they saw Leeds getting promoted

00:24and Gray playing at least one season in the Premier League with Leeds and then probably

00:29having proven that he's up to the standard then going for God knows how much money. Now there

00:35are a lot of people who were thinking why should we sell the Crown Jewel and why should we accept

00:41that our best players should go and play elsewhere and had that elsewhere been, oh I don't know,

00:48Brentford then I think it would have been an awful look. It was an awful look for Leeds that

00:54actually came that close to being. Whereas Tottenham, at least they're a bigger club than

00:59Brentford. They are expected to be at the right end of the Premier League table and they're in

01:04the Europa League with aspirations of being in the Champions League again. That I think is a

01:09bit more palatable than losing your absolute star boy to a club like Brentford who are very well

01:17run, recruit very well but ultimately they're not a bigger club than Leeds United. You've mentioned

01:23Archie as the Crown Jewel or the Crown Jewels of this Leeds United team and certainly of the

01:27academy in the last 10-15 years really isn't he? Probably say Lewis Cook and Calvin Phillips are

01:32obviously on a similar level but I think this one really hurts and is very difficult to swallow for

01:38Leeds fans because it's the what if. He's been mentioned by the England manager whilst playing

01:44not a minute of Premier League football. He's played an entire season, 52 games and been one

01:49of the standouts. His association with the club goes back long before he was born, long before

01:54his parents were born and I think that's what really hurts with this one. The Gray family and

01:59Leeds United are an institution in themselves. It seems as though that this decision has been made

02:04and the issue has been forced to satisfy some very arbitrary accounting requirements or some very

02:11arbitrary financial controls and it just feels very... it's not what we fell in love with football

02:16for.