His moments of skill to get out when penned in make me gasp in ecstasy.
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Player Archie Gray
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I can kinda see the comparison but Gray is much more agile and more versatile than Carrick was.
Whether that will make Gray a better is another question. Only time will tell.
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His sister Tess is a top lass.
Bergvall looked the more impressive during pre-season but Gray now looks much further along.
Would have no qualms with Gray starting PL games at this point.
Would have no qualms with Gray starting PL games at this point.
So is her twin, Iden.
I have had very little exposure to his ability, which is why I watched him play for his country to try to learn more about him playing competitive football
Again, very small sample size; right now he isn't producing, which I can't say about Gray and Moore. That isn't to say he won't
‘If I gave the ball away when I was younger, I’d punch myself in the leg’
His heritage may be well documented as he follows in the family footsteps of footballing greatness, but £40million Archie Gray’s brutal obsession with winning is less well known
www.thetimes.com
As with most young footballers, Archie Gray always looked up to his watching family before kick-off, but something was different this time. One member of Gray’s family was not just standing on the side or sitting in the stands. He was up there on the stadium’s big screen, running, celebrating and scoring goals. Gray and 37,000 others looked up and watched in awe.
It was Eddie Gray’s goal they played at Elland Road, his demolition dribble in 1970 where four Burnley bodies come and go — two of them twice — as Gray feints, drags and dummies his way through. “Eddie’s goal, you might have to google it, against Burnley, that’s my favourite,” Archie, 18, says. “It was always on the big screen before games at Leeds. They’d put the best clips on and he was always there so, yeah, I love that one.”
The Gray family’s record for producing footballers would be the envy of some elite academies. Eddie Gray, one of Leeds United’s greatest players and twice their manager, is Archie’s great uncle, while Frank Gray, winner of the European Cup in 1980 and first division in 1974, is his grandfather. Archie’s dad, Andy Gray, played 51 times in the Premier League for Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Sunderland, while Eddie’s son, Stuart Gray, spent six years with Celtic. That’s five professional footballers, across three generations, from one family. And counting. Archie’s three younger brothers, Harry, Alexander and George, have all been signed up to the Leeds academy.
It is enough to make you wonder if there is something in the tea in the Gray house in Harrogate or, at the very least, a degree of pressure exerted through the genes. “It’s not about living up to the family name, it’s never about that,” Gray says. “There’s no pressure, even my little brothers, they just love playing football and it’s the same with me, there was never any pressure on us. If we weren’t footballers they wouldn’t be disappointed or angry or anything. They would be happy with whatever we did.”
Postecoglou has used Gray mostly at right back, where he shone for Leeds last season
HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Instead, Gray talks about the basics of “being pushed to play outside” as a child and some of his earliest memories are of playing with his brothers in the back garden before and after school. Gray is something of a teenage prodigy now, a £40million summer signing for Tottenham Hotspur and the fourth-most expensive 18-year-old of all time, but he still loves a game of Wembley doubles out the back. “We still play now,” Gray says. “It’s always me and my youngest brother against the two middle ones, two v twos, or we do a little crossing game, it’s hilarious. My dad used to referee but he’s sick of it now, sick of all the tears.”
In fact, it was never just football for Gray growing up, his parents encouraging him to complete his GCSEs, even when it meant sitting a geography exam the morning after he helped Leeds to survive relegation from the Premier League. The 6ft 2in midfielder played a variety of sports, including tennis, swimming and cricket — “I was a batter, I couldn’t bowl for anything, I just used to smash it about” — and he excelled at athletics, competing at the nationals in the 1,500m and cross-country.
Gray has never lost that love of running. “My mates used to think it was weird and say, ‘Why do you enjoy running?’ But I loved the feeling of it,” he says. “Even now I definitely back myself to be one of the fittest in the team. We didn’t do pre-season fitness tests this season but at Leeds I would make sure I was one of, if not the, fittest player. Growing up, my dad always made me work hard before pre-season. He made me run and run and I loved it.” Gray’s mum, Giorgina, has run marathons too. “She’s incredible, she’s a really strong woman,” he says. “I don’t think I’d get anywhere near her in a marathon, to be honest.”
Young British players, thriving at clubs lower down, are the kind of signings Tottenham have tended to get right in the Daniel Levy era, but listening to Gray you realise he is also the ultimate Postecoglou-prototype, a fearless and ambitious youngster, with big lungs and long legs, and the ability to play multiple positions.
Gray is probably best as a box-to-box No8, and one of England’s great hopes in central midfield, but Ange Postecoglou has used him mostly at right back, where he shone for Leeds last season. Then on Thursday night, away to Ferencvaros in the Europa League, Gray played centre back in the first half and left back in the second. “Archie was brilliant today,” Postecoglou said. “It’s incredible how he adjusts and just brings his game to wherever we put him.”
Gray celebrates a Brennan Johnson goal against Quarabag last week. In Hungary against Ferencvaros this week he played part of the game at centre half, underlining his versatility
MIKE HEWITT/GETTY IMAGES
Gray backs away from declaring his favoured position — “honestly I don’t care where I play,” he says — but admits versatility is king in the modern game, particularly in the free and fluid Postecoglou system. “In our system you have to be able to play in different positions, not just to cover for people when they’re injured, but to be comfortable wherever you are on the pitch,” he says. “A lot of teams demand that now. You have to be open-minded, you can’t be fixed on one thing or one area. Even the incredible players, they’re comfortable wherever they are, that’s how the game is now.”
Gray joined Leeds at the age of seven, and at 15 he was named as a substitute by Marcelo Bielsa for a Premier League game against Woolwich. Until March this year he was not even allowed to change in the same room as the first-team players because of safeguarding rules around minors, and Gray admits moving south, living on his own for the first time and “trying to cook for myself” has all taken some getting used to. For all the hype, this is only his second season playing senior football.
It is a reminder Gray is just starting out, even if he carries himself like a seasoned veteran. Here inside the Tottenham Community Sports Centre, he is touring the room, shaking hands with every participant in the Move4You programme, a brilliant initiative organised by the club’s foundation, putting on exercise sessions for people who have had cancer diagnosed in the past five years. Last season Gray thrilled Leeds fans on social media, when a video emerged of him standing in the middle of a team huddle delivering a pep talk.
He looked like a future captain. “I don’t think anyone listened to me,” he says, smiling. “The captain was there and I just somehow found myself in the middle. I like that kind of thing. I think everyone at a young age wants to captain a top team but I’ve got a lot of hard work to do before I can get anywhere near that.”
Gray has always set high standards. “When I was younger if I gave the ball away, I would be fuming at myself,” he says. “I’d punch myself in the thigh and give myself dead legs. I just desperately wanted to win.”
Gray has been playing an active role in the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation’s Move4You programme, that provides physical activity sessions for cancer sufferers
ALEX MORTON/THFC
It must have been a hard decision to leave Leeds, his boyhood club, and Elland Road, where he first walked out as a mascot. It would have been natural to wonder if it was too soon. “There’s always thoughts like that in the back of your head, but when I knew Tottenham were coming in, I knew it was the right time to go,” he says.
“These opportunities don’t come around very often, and you never know, if I didn’t take it this year it might not come round again. A club like Tottenham and the chance to work under this manager and his staff, sometimes it’s the chance of a lifetime and you never know when it might go by. I felt like it was the right time this summer.”
Gray knows the stat about the most expensive 18-year-olds ever, that only three have gone for more money than him and all of them now play for Real Madrid: Vinicius Júnior, Rodrygo, “yeah and Endrick,” Gray says, completing the list. So does he believe he can reach the very top? “I do and Tottenham is the perfect club for that,” he says. “If I keep working hard hopefully I can get to that top level. I believe in my ability and I believe I can do that but there’s a lot of hard work to do to get there.”
Gray’s dad, Andy, and his grandad, Frank, reassured him Tottenham was the right club at the right time and it would be a brave teenager who ignored their advice. So what’s the Gray family secret, the one tip that always seems to deliver? “It’s something that’s always stuck with me — just always be the hardest-working person you know,” Gray says. “If I see someone doing something, I try to do more than them. They always say if you’re the hardest worker in the room, you’re in a good place. They’ve always taught me that.”
It was Eddie Gray’s goal they played at Elland Road, his demolition dribble in 1970 where four Burnley bodies come and go — two of them twice — as Gray feints, drags and dummies his way through. “Eddie’s goal, you might have to google it, against Burnley, that’s my favourite,” Archie, 18, says. “It was always on the big screen before games at Leeds. They’d put the best clips on and he was always there so, yeah, I love that one.”
The Gray family’s record for producing footballers would be the envy of some elite academies. Eddie Gray, one of Leeds United’s greatest players and twice their manager, is Archie’s great uncle, while Frank Gray, winner of the European Cup in 1980 and first division in 1974, is his grandfather. Archie’s dad, Andy Gray, played 51 times in the Premier League for Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Sunderland, while Eddie’s son, Stuart Gray, spent six years with Celtic. That’s five professional footballers, across three generations, from one family. And counting. Archie’s three younger brothers, Harry, Alexander and George, have all been signed up to the Leeds academy.
It is enough to make you wonder if there is something in the tea in the Gray house in Harrogate or, at the very least, a degree of pressure exerted through the genes. “It’s not about living up to the family name, it’s never about that,” Gray says. “There’s no pressure, even my little brothers, they just love playing football and it’s the same with me, there was never any pressure on us. If we weren’t footballers they wouldn’t be disappointed or angry or anything. They would be happy with whatever we did.”
Postecoglou has used Gray mostly at right back, where he shone for Leeds last season
HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Instead, Gray talks about the basics of “being pushed to play outside” as a child and some of his earliest memories are of playing with his brothers in the back garden before and after school. Gray is something of a teenage prodigy now, a £40million summer signing for Tottenham Hotspur and the fourth-most expensive 18-year-old of all time, but he still loves a game of Wembley doubles out the back. “We still play now,” Gray says. “It’s always me and my youngest brother against the two middle ones, two v twos, or we do a little crossing game, it’s hilarious. My dad used to referee but he’s sick of it now, sick of all the tears.”
In fact, it was never just football for Gray growing up, his parents encouraging him to complete his GCSEs, even when it meant sitting a geography exam the morning after he helped Leeds to survive relegation from the Premier League. The 6ft 2in midfielder played a variety of sports, including tennis, swimming and cricket — “I was a batter, I couldn’t bowl for anything, I just used to smash it about” — and he excelled at athletics, competing at the nationals in the 1,500m and cross-country.
Gray has never lost that love of running. “My mates used to think it was weird and say, ‘Why do you enjoy running?’ But I loved the feeling of it,” he says. “Even now I definitely back myself to be one of the fittest in the team. We didn’t do pre-season fitness tests this season but at Leeds I would make sure I was one of, if not the, fittest player. Growing up, my dad always made me work hard before pre-season. He made me run and run and I loved it.” Gray’s mum, Giorgina, has run marathons too. “She’s incredible, she’s a really strong woman,” he says. “I don’t think I’d get anywhere near her in a marathon, to be honest.”
Young British players, thriving at clubs lower down, are the kind of signings Tottenham have tended to get right in the Daniel Levy era, but listening to Gray you realise he is also the ultimate Postecoglou-prototype, a fearless and ambitious youngster, with big lungs and long legs, and the ability to play multiple positions.
Gray is probably best as a box-to-box No8, and one of England’s great hopes in central midfield, but Ange Postecoglou has used him mostly at right back, where he shone for Leeds last season. Then on Thursday night, away to Ferencvaros in the Europa League, Gray played centre back in the first half and left back in the second. “Archie was brilliant today,” Postecoglou said. “It’s incredible how he adjusts and just brings his game to wherever we put him.”
Gray celebrates a Brennan Johnson goal against Quarabag last week. In Hungary against Ferencvaros this week he played part of the game at centre half, underlining his versatility
MIKE HEWITT/GETTY IMAGES
Gray backs away from declaring his favoured position — “honestly I don’t care where I play,” he says — but admits versatility is king in the modern game, particularly in the free and fluid Postecoglou system. “In our system you have to be able to play in different positions, not just to cover for people when they’re injured, but to be comfortable wherever you are on the pitch,” he says. “A lot of teams demand that now. You have to be open-minded, you can’t be fixed on one thing or one area. Even the incredible players, they’re comfortable wherever they are, that’s how the game is now.”
Gray joined Leeds at the age of seven, and at 15 he was named as a substitute by Marcelo Bielsa for a Premier League game against Woolwich. Until March this year he was not even allowed to change in the same room as the first-team players because of safeguarding rules around minors, and Gray admits moving south, living on his own for the first time and “trying to cook for myself” has all taken some getting used to. For all the hype, this is only his second season playing senior football.
It is a reminder Gray is just starting out, even if he carries himself like a seasoned veteran. Here inside the Tottenham Community Sports Centre, he is touring the room, shaking hands with every participant in the Move4You programme, a brilliant initiative organised by the club’s foundation, putting on exercise sessions for people who have had cancer diagnosed in the past five years. Last season Gray thrilled Leeds fans on social media, when a video emerged of him standing in the middle of a team huddle delivering a pep talk.
He looked like a future captain. “I don’t think anyone listened to me,” he says, smiling. “The captain was there and I just somehow found myself in the middle. I like that kind of thing. I think everyone at a young age wants to captain a top team but I’ve got a lot of hard work to do before I can get anywhere near that.”
Gray has always set high standards. “When I was younger if I gave the ball away, I would be fuming at myself,” he says. “I’d punch myself in the thigh and give myself dead legs. I just desperately wanted to win.”
Gray has been playing an active role in the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation’s Move4You programme, that provides physical activity sessions for cancer sufferers
ALEX MORTON/THFC
It must have been a hard decision to leave Leeds, his boyhood club, and Elland Road, where he first walked out as a mascot. It would have been natural to wonder if it was too soon. “There’s always thoughts like that in the back of your head, but when I knew Tottenham were coming in, I knew it was the right time to go,” he says.
“These opportunities don’t come around very often, and you never know, if I didn’t take it this year it might not come round again. A club like Tottenham and the chance to work under this manager and his staff, sometimes it’s the chance of a lifetime and you never know when it might go by. I felt like it was the right time this summer.”
Gray knows the stat about the most expensive 18-year-olds ever, that only three have gone for more money than him and all of them now play for Real Madrid: Vinicius Júnior, Rodrygo, “yeah and Endrick,” Gray says, completing the list. So does he believe he can reach the very top? “I do and Tottenham is the perfect club for that,” he says. “If I keep working hard hopefully I can get to that top level. I believe in my ability and I believe I can do that but there’s a lot of hard work to do to get there.”
Gray’s dad, Andy, and his grandad, Frank, reassured him Tottenham was the right club at the right time and it would be a brave teenager who ignored their advice. So what’s the Gray family secret, the one tip that always seems to deliver? “It’s something that’s always stuck with me — just always be the hardest-working person you know,” Gray says. “If I see someone doing something, I try to do more than them. They always say if you’re the hardest worker in the room, you’re in a good place. They’ve always taught me that.”
England U21 stream for Gray and Dane later
Kickoff 19.45
View: https://www.youtube.com/live/tRh_RfK1EPM?si=7qt_vg8GoJwUbjx4
Kickoff 19.45
View: https://www.youtube.com/live/tRh_RfK1EPM?si=7qt_vg8GoJwUbjx4
Gray playing as an 8 today.
Played alright. Nobody really shone for England other than McAtee with his two goals. Ukraine were difficult opponents who were well organised.
Apparently he's related to Alan Ball, His Great-Uncle.
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Hahahaha I can’t say with some level of certainty that as promising as Gray is, he will never be as good as Carrick