'I couldn't do this' - Leeds United star's Archie Gray admission and promotion race vow

At 22 years of age Summerville is rightly considered among the Championship's brightest young talents. On Sunday he won the division's Player of the Season award but this is his first ever season as a first team regular starter. He was certainly present last season in the Premier League, but started just 12 times in his 28 top flight appearances. It was only the club's relegation, the arrival of Daniel Farke and Summerville's contentment to stay put that all lined up and presented the opportunity to become a main man at Elland Road. He ran with it, taking just nine games to match last season's tally of four goals and two assists. He now has 83 first team appearances for Leeds under his belt, taking him over the 100-game mark in senior football.

Next to Gray, who just turned 18 last month and had no competitive experience to draw upon in the men's game prior to this season, Summerville is a veritable veteran. And what Gray is doing, despite the tenderness of his age, is not lost on the Dutchman. "It's crazy," he said after watching his team-mate pick up Young Player of the Season and Apprentice of the Season at Sunday's EFL Awards. "He knows how I think about him, I couldn't do this at this age, it asks a lot from you. He knows I call him our golden boy and we have to take care of him. I hope he's got a great future at Leeds."

What the future holds for both youngsters is undoubtedly bright, wherever they find themselves playing. Gray's familial ties to Elland Road are strong enough to withstand at least one summer of transfer enticement from elsewhere, but when the club's accounts were published last weeks most minds settled reluctantly but quickly on Summerville when considering the need to sell that will likely arise should Leeds not return immediately to the cash-rich environment of the first tier.

Right now Summerville is all about the present, though. The frustrations of the last few games aside, he is relishing the conditions Leeds have created around him and a subsequent improvement in his approach to the game. "I think the staff, the players I work with every day, they let me do everything, they can create the best for me," he said. "That we like to play on the front foot, dominant, we like to create many chances, that's always good for an attacker. The fans help me a lot as well, they're our 12th man. I enjoy every game I put the shirt on. I think I'm more professional, like extra work, focusing on maybe corners or finishing, how to do things better in a game and I think I've changed a lot this season. It's quite hard, the league is different than last season but with our physios and people around they help me a lot."

No one at Leeds relished what happened last weekend, or indeed over the course of the last fortnight. Defeat at Coventry City ended an incredible three-month unbeaten streak for the Whites, a home draw with Sunderland poured petrol on simmering frustration and Saturday's 1-0 loss to Blackburn sent the lot up. They return to action at Middlesbrough on Monday night, travel to QPR on Friday and then welcome Southampton to Elland Road for what could still be an automatic promotion decider for the ages. Summerville, who says his childhood dream was to play in the Premier League, says belief was key to Leeds dragging themselves back into the fight for the top two and it will remain so for the final three games.

"I think [the mood was] disappointed [after Blackburn], we could have gone top but it's still in our own hands, we've got three games left, we have to go back and see what we have to do better, take the positives and go again for three more finals," he said. "I think we always believed otherwise we wouldn't be in the position we're in now. We have to keep doing what we did and three more finals. We're going to give everything to reach our plan."