‘The best’: Emmanuel Frimpong says Leeds have a player who was up there with Jack Wilshere as a youngster

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Arsenal have produced some incredible youngsters over the years.

Jack Wilsher, Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe are but a few, but there are so many more talented players who have passed through the Arsenal academy in recent years.

One player that you may not associate with Arsenal all that much is Luke Ayling. The right-back has largely made his name at Leeds United, but before he was marauding up and down the wing for the Yorkshire club, he was a youngster at Arsenal.

According to Emmanuel Frimpong, speaking on Arsenal’s YouTube channel, Ayling was actually fantastic when he was at Arsenal, claiming that he was one of the best in his group technically, while also saying that the full-backs lack of pace was a real issue.

Ayling was one of the best

Frimpong spoke about how good the Leeds ace was as a youngster.

“Coquelin was good and he came later on. At the start Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, Jack Wilshere, Sanchez Watt, Luke Ayling. Luke was very good, but Luke was very slow right. Technically he was the best, for a defender he was very good,” Frimpong said.

Got there eventually

Ayling may not have reached the heights expected of him at Arsenal early in his career, but he managed to carve out a very decent run as a Premier League player at Leeds.

At one point under Marcelo Bielsa, Ayling was even reportedly considered for an England squad, and, as Frimpong says, perhaps if he was a bit more physically gifted, he’d have been a star.

These days, he’s a bit past his best, but, in all honesty, Ayling may well be the best right-back Leeds have had since Gary Kelly.

Ayling may not have made it at Arsenal, but he’s a modern day great at Leeds.