How has Dwight Gayle never played for Leeds United? The question goes much deeper than whether Gayle would have scored goals for Leeds, or even the story of why reported interest in 2017 and January 2020 didn’t come to fruition (tl;dr too expensive in 2017 and then, ironically, we signed Jean-Kevin Augustin in 2020). Instead it’s really about how a player who so obviously mirrors both Leeds United’s successes and failings over the last fifteen years somehow never led the line at Elland Road. He hasn’t been as incessantly linked with a move to West Yorkshire as Ryan Kent, but he has an aura of ‘Leeds United forward’ that Kent has never quite had for me.

Gayle had a meteoric rise through the lower reaches of the Football League. First he scored nine goals in sixteen in the sixth tier for Stansted to earn a move to League Two Rushden and Diamonds. There he grabbed seven in eighteen to earn a provisional loan and eventual transfer to Championship side Peterborough in January 2012. At this point, Luciano Becchio was still up front at Elland Road, so you can perhaps understand why the Leeds United hierarchy didn’t move for him when they had the chance here. That, and the fact they were utterly incompetent at scouting talent. As Becchio departed for Norwich that January, Steve Morison arrived in a swap as his ‘replacement’. Hmmm.

Gayle then had a patchy few years with Crystal Palace in the Premier League before being sold to newly relegated Newcastle. Having found his level again, he promptly fired in 23 in 32 games to get the Magpies promoted. This man is not good enough for the Premier League, but he is clearly far far too good for the second tier. It’s unlikely anyone would say Leeds were too good for the Premier League in this era, but perhaps they were too big. There will be no comment on any refereeing decisions here.

Appropriately then, that was the summer when Gayle-to-Leeds chat started in earnest, with one slight spanner in the works. Yes, Rafa Benitez was willing to sell, apparently concerned with a hamstring injury Gayle had picked up in the January and the subsequent psychological effect this had had on him. Yes, Leeds were interested. But the price? £18m, apparently. Yeah, and how much is the fish tank, mate?

But Gayle and Leeds United were star-crossed lovers, and the rumours persisted, most notably again in the summer after Leeds failed to earn promotion in 2019. Every Bamford miss was pored over like the Zapruder tape, with Twitter and the pages of the YEP filled with the names of his presumed replacement. Predictably, Gayle was among them. You have to wonder if, as crosses were pinged in at Bamford, the Mitre Delta didn’t morph into the disembodied head of Gayle. Be honest, that would probably put you off the chance to score too.

In January, with many Leeds fans projecting Bamford might cost us promotion, the Gayle rumours intensified. By this point the price had dropped to £15m, a paltry discount given he’d failed to score across the first half of the season. Instead, Leeds secured a buy-now-pay-later deal for Jean-Kevin Augustin. Apparently, the powers that be really only read as far as “buy now”.

And so Gayle to Leeds never came to pass. Or rather, it hasn’t yet. He’s currently 35, so it seems unlikely, but he spent Boxing Day winning the Edinburgh derby for Hibs. Apologies to Phil Hay if he’s reading. It was a good finish, getting across his man at the near post, opening up his body and finishing past the keeper. Gayle had hinted he might hang up his boots at the end of this campaign but in recent weeks he has said that if he carries on scoring he might as well carry on playing.

Now, I am absolutely not saying that Leeds should sign a 35-year-old Dwight Gayle whose body is, by his own admission, “breaking down”. Even if Pat Bamford departs for Wrexham or Blackburn and a spot opens up for a striker who never really plays, it would probably not be a good financial move to sign a 35-year-old with aching limbs. It would almost certainly not be a good football move, even in the short term. It makes little to no sense in any way.

But it would complete a cosmic circle, a Yin and Yang finally united at Leeds. It would scratch an itch that I, along with gossip column writers up and down the country, have been trying to reach for years. If Leeds are about to become a club who are too good for the Championship and, whisper it quietly, not good enough for the Premier League, then what better way to see in that era than with Dwight Devon Boyd Gayle. ⬢

(Photograph by Darren Staples, via Alamy)