Drameh faces make-or-break season at Leeds and Ayling is standing in his way

One of the points of interest at Leeds United each summer is who on the list of possible academy breakthroughs will step forward and make the grade.

There is a deep tradition of youth development at Elland Road, a tradition born way back when, and over the past few weeks, Archie Gray has maintained it in more ways than one. Darko Gyabi is fishing for first-team minutes too and Daniel Farke has warmed to Mateo Joseph, Leeds’ academy striker who is injured.

Cody Drameh was another prospect craving more game time this season, though it is questionable whether Drameh belongs on a breakthrough list. He might not have forced his way through properly at Leeds yet but he already has the measure of the Championship: club player of the year during one loan with Cardiff City, promoted via the play-offs following a second at Luton Town. Of all the younger footballers available to Farke, Drameh is arguably as ready-made as most.

When Leeds signed Drameh from Fulham in 2020, they would have hoped that, by now, he would have progressed to this stage. He was 18 when he joined and the point of the deal was that, down the line, the club would see a changing of the guard at right-back, a position nailed down by Luke Ayling for so long.

But Drameh’s senior development has taken place elsewhere and, now 21, he finds himself in an odd position, with a contract that expires next year and no offer of an extension on the table. It has reached the juncture where if Drameh is to have a breakthrough campaign at Elland Road, this will have to be it.

Farke, Leeds’ head coach, is yet to show his hand with Drameh, partly because the defender pulled a hamstring in training a few weeks ago and was still recovering as Leeds’ first league game against Cardiff City kicked off (though he did come on for the final minutes of the Carabao Cup game against Shrewsbury Town on August 9).

But Ayling, with more than 250 club appearances behind him, holds favour at right-back and as of a fortnight ago, United were on the verge of signing another player for that role, Max Aarons, until Aarons abandoned a medical and took a different offer from Bournemouth.

While Aarons can play on the left side of a back line too, his preferred position is clear and Farke intended to use him on the right.

In theory, that would have meant three players vying for the same shirt: Ayling, Drameh and Aarons. Leeds’ resources there had been trimmed by Rasmus Kristensen leaving on loan for Roma but for as long as Aarons’ arrival looked likely, it posed a question about the pecking order at right-back and about what the future would hold for Ayling and, in particular, Drameh.

Ayling, like his much younger team-mate, is out of contract next July and turns 32 tomorrow. It is not a relationship that will last forever. But he is in Farke’s starting line-up and Leeds are still considering adding more cover at full-back before the transfer deadline, hiking up competition again.

Drameh’s contractual situation as it stands is thought to suit him because any willingness to accept a new deal would depend on some level of assurance from Leeds about how much he was going to play. He went on loan to Cardiff midway through the 2021-22 season and started every game, impressive enough to win their player of the year award on the basis of half a campaign in south Wales.

He went on loan to Luton at roughly the same time last season and was ever-present again, right through to the end of the Championship play-off final. But at Leeds, his league minutes have totalled 197, with none of those under Farke. Drameh’s return to full fitness has seen him on the bench for the club’s past three fixtures, nominally back in the frame.

Those previous spells in the Championship have defined him as an attacking full-back, one who likes the freedom to commit beyond halfway and contribute in the final third with overlaps and underlaps. His performance data was good at Cardiff and got better at Luton, perhaps because of his own development but helped no doubt by the fact that Luton were a superior team to Cardiff.

Defensively, Luton impressed during Drameh’s spell at Kenilworth Road, with nine clean sheets in his 16 league outings (excluding play-offs) and a total of 10 goals conceded. Their promotion to the Premier League was built on an impressive tally of eight defeats in 46 games.

Luton had a different style from Farke’s teams in the sense that they were not heavily possession-based or reliant on retention of the ball. One of the main thrusts of their tactical plan was to work it out wide quickly and deliver crosses from the flanks, an approach that suited Drameh nicely.

Their average of 21.8 passes per wide delivery was the second lowest in the whole of the EFL, underlining the speed of their attacks. Drameh averaged more than five crosses a game (5.4), a big increase on his tally at Cardiff (3.4). As a result, his creativity improved markedly, too.

But as smarterscout’s data explains (graphic above), he was incredibly proficient at the back too, on the scene with interceptions and ball recoveries and very good at interrupting opposition attacks. He has defined himself as an all-round full-back, one who can attack, defend and strike the right balance between both. One of Farke’s big challenges at Elland Road is to rectify a defensive record that has been hampering Leeds for a long time. The club’s search for a clean sheet goes back to February and the earliest days of Javi Gracia.

A direct comparison with his data at Cardiff (above) shows how much Drameh’s performance levels and role within the team moved forward during his second loan, though it should not be forgotten that while Luton finished third in the table, Cardiff were 18th at the end of the campaign in which they took him from Leeds.

But both periods answered doubts about whether Drameh was suited to the division. They also indicated that technically, he might possess the quality to play at a higher level again.

There are Premier League clubs with a speculative eye on him — Brentford, West Ham United and Crystal Palace — and one of his biggest admirers is Southampton manager Russell Martin, who tried to sign Drameh in his previous job at Swansea City.

Southampton are only likely to be in the market for a right-back if Kyle Walker-Peters moves before next week’s deadline, but Martin’s high opinion of Drameh is a fairly open secret.

All the indications given to Drameh by Leeds at the very start of this summer were that he would be in their plans this season, a footballer they rated and would be happy to use. He is waiting to see if that chance materialises, knowing that if game time doesn’t come his way, there are clubs out there who will offer him more.

(Graphics: Thom Harris)

(Top photo: Pat Scaasi/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)