Leeds United teen withdrawn from international camp after ‘fitness concern’ and Bellingham comparison

The teenager has started each of Leeds’ seven fixtures in league and cup competition this year, adapting to first-team football impressively despite his prior lack of senior football.

Gray’s professional debut came from the start against Cardiff City last month and the youngster has remained in Daniel Farke’s side since, in the absence of what the German deems adequate replacements for the function Gray carries out.

The signings of Ilia Gruev and Glen Kamara will ease the minutes burden on the young midfielder’s shoulders, but the decision has been taken, nonetheless, to keep Gray at Thorp Arch during the upcoming international break.

Gray had been named in England’s Under-19 group for the first time this week ahead of fixtures against Germany and Switzerland, but owing to his involvement with Leeds’ senior team and a ‘slight fitness concern’, a period of rest has been prioritised by the club who aim to manage his workload carefully.

In the Championship’s last five seasons, very few players of Gray’s age have featured as prominently as the young midfielder in 2023/24. Gray has played 446 league minutes, across five outings, in addition to starts in the Carabao Cup First and Second Rounds.

Since the beginning of 2019/20, only six other 17-year-olds have surpassed the 400-minute mark in a single Championship campaign. They include Jude Bellingham (2019/20), Joe Gelhardt (2019/20), Harvey Elliott (2020/21), Jordan James (2021/22), Jobe Bellingham (2022/23) and Ashley Phillips (2022/23).

Jude Bellingham and Elliott played over 2,000 minutes during their respective campaigns, while James narrowly surpassed 1,000 minutes. Gelhardt, Phillips and Jobe Bellingham all appeared for less than 600 minutes, spread across multiple appearances, as opposed to Gray’s repeated starts.

These minutes were also accrued across an entire campaign, as opposed to Leeds’ fledgling midfielder who is one month into the new season.

Even with Gruev and Kamara’s arrival, Gray is set to expected to exceed 1,500 minutes of league action this season. Leeds have an obligation to monitor the youngster’s mental and physical wellbeing; by signing the Bulgarian and Finnish international midfielders, Gray will now feature less, therefore mitigating potential burnout or exposing him to an increased risk of injury.

FIFPro, the professional footballers’ union, released a report earlier this summer sharing player welfare concerns in light of the increasingly congested professional football calendar. The report warned of risks ‘to mental health, careers, and personal lives of players’, amid warnings that ‘today’s elite young players...have played up to double the previous generation’.

“Vinicius Jr has at age 22 already played 18,876 minutes club and national team football, more than twice as much as former Brazil playmaker Ronaldinho at the same age.

“France’s Kylian Mbappe has at age 24 played 26,952 minutes, 48 percent more minutes than Thierry Henry at the same age.

“Jude Bellingham will have played more than 30 percent more minutes of competitive football by his 20th birthday later this month than Wayne Rooney, at the same age,” the report found.

“Evidence shows that the cannibalisation of the match calendar is putting more mental and physical stress on today’s elite players than the previous generation,” FIFPro General Secretary Jonas Baer-Hoffmann said.

“Even though some are having to reduce their commitments or leave the game early, there is no sign of a solution to protect them,” Hoffman added, reflecting the situation Gray currently finds himself in, whose withdrawal from England Under-19 duty has come about in order to protect the player.

Leeds’ next league fixture is in just over two weeks’ time away to Millwall, for which Farke hopes to have Gray available following a period of rest.