Andrew Taylor was first team coach at Sunderland when he was asked to become Leeds United loans manager.
During a playing career that saw him represent Middlesbrough, Cardiff City and Bolton Wanderers among others, the left-back completed a master's degree in Sporting Directorship and the position on offer at Thorp Arch felt more suited to his preferred pathway than coaching. He met with Adam Underwood and then-director of football Victor Orta, accepted their proposal and has been at Thorp Arch for five years.
"Victor said I'd get exposure to contracts, negotiating, everything that I wanted to be doing," said Taylor, whose time as loans manager was punctuated by three stints in charge of the Under-23s that only galvanised his desire to follow his original plan. Now he holds the title of assistant sporting director, but remains well placed to discuss the club's current loan strategy.
Taylor puts loans at Leeds United into three categories.
"The development loan, to come back to us, like Harry Gray going out, is where the focus is very much to go and get games in a first-team environment to ultimately come back to our first team squad," he said.
"Then you might have first team players who you need to move. You can't get a trade so you do a loan and recoup the salary. You make space for other players that way, you get a little bit of money back or give them a platform to go and increase their value. Joffy [Joe Gelhardt] last year, that wasn't a development loan, that's a go-out-and-play loan and it worked perfectly in our eyes."
The last category is what Taylor calls a 'transition loan' - youngsters who require a chance to go and play men’s football to start their career. Quite often, careers are not linear. Jamie Vardy's story is one of many that took a player to where they wanted to go or even beyond their wildest dreams, via a non-league detour. Dominic Calvert-Lewin began to earn his stripes on loan from Sheffield United at Stalybridge Celtic. Regardless of the end destination, playing men's football is development.
"Sometimes you're giving them a loan to a try and increase the value for a return on an investment, or you're just giving them a chance to go and get exposure," he said. "They go out and get men's football and it's gaining traction."
The dream for any player who walks through the doors of Thorp Arch is to one day say they played a lot of games at the highest level. Taylor's career included 110 in the Premier League and 228 in the Championship. He is one of those now putting serious thought into how Leeds utilise loans to develop players who can go on to cut it at the top level. Managing director Robbie Evans, sporting director Underwood, academy manager Martin Diggle and first team manager Daniel Farke all have input - the latter more in cases that involve young players on the fringes of his senior squad. The club is not the only stakeholder in any decision though.
"The manager, the club, the player has got to buy in, and whether we like it or not, agents play a big part in it," said Taylor. "It's trying to bring it all together in a long enough time frame where it can all be prepared. The player can be prepared. He knows what he's going into. We can create meetings with whatever club it is. The reality is, sometimes you've got to be reactive. It might be that the plan wasn't necessarily to loan a player, but a really good club are pushing for it. Maybe it's a good opportunity for him to go and play games.
"We're constantly discussing players. So between Adam, me, Robbie, Martin, we're constantly in dialogue about where the lads are, who's with the first team group, what their plan might be now, what might the plan look like for January, what it might look like next season. Obviously, Scott Gardner [Under-21s boss] is involved in that, and he's excellent. He's not got a hidden agenda for himself. He very much understands how difficult it is to make the last step into a Premier League team, into a first-team environment. He's really encouraging and open-minded to lads going out."
The Premier League standard being what it is, Diggle says players need a ‘career before a career' if they are to hope to compete in the best league in the world. Loan moves are a big part of supporting youngsters in what is a difficult transition from youth football to the top level of the men’s game.
Charlie Crew, still only 20, is one of those out learning the game in the EFL right now. He's started in each of Walsall's last two league victories as a defensive midfielder and has surpassed 800 minutes for the campaign already.
Leeds' most high profile prospect at present is the aforementioned Gray, who turned 18 last month and scored his first goal for loan club Sheffield Wednesday. The teen, who missed three games following a knock sustained against Bradford City, has started eight times in League One and the EFL Cup and already has over 700 minutes of action. Given that he played third tier football on loan at Rotherham United last season, there was external conjecture that the Championship would be next and rumours about various expressions of interest.
"He had options," said Taylor. "He met with four teams, with the managers. One of my big philosophies is that the player has to have a big say in things, because he's the one going somewhere. We cannot be in a position where we're going 'no, you're not going where you want to go, we're sending you here,' because you're setting them up to fail almost. We can steer them. I sit in all the meetings he has with the managers and we talk about it. We discuss it with the player, his agent, his dad. We discuss it internally. You've got to try and get to a position where all the key stakeholders are happy with the decision.
"Sheffield Wednesday is local enough; he's not going too far away, because when he first went out on loan to Rotherham United he was only 17 so there's a bit of a safeguarding issue. We don't want to send him somewhere too far because he can't just go and stay in a hotel on his own. So he gets to still stay at home until 18, and then obviously he can make his own decision.
"Last season he went to League One last year in a good club, but a struggling club, and he spent a lot of his time defending. I thought he had a really good loan spell last year, and there was a couple of possibilities of maybe the Championship this season, but we felt it might be the bottom end of the Championship. Our question was 'how do we go and give Harry Gray the best possible platform to go and be successful at what he's really good at, which is in the final third?' A couple of other clubs we spoke to would have been in that category.
"Sheffield Wednesday are going to be strong. Secondly, there's a huge expectation on the club, a huge following, huge pressure because they're a massive club, and if we're trying to prepare him to come back and play for Leeds United in the Premier League, where there's huge expectation, huge following, huge pressure, it's really difficult to replicate that. Going somewhere like a Sheffield Wednesday under the scrutiny, under the big club mentality - everybody who plays against Sheffield Wednesday, it's their big game, so you've got to come up with solutions to win games, to be creative."
The other consideration was the level of competition Gray would face for a starting place at Hillsborough. Thus far he has played in just about every attacking position but in three of his last four starts, including the 5-0 rout of AFC Wimbledon, Gray has been used on the left. Louie Barry had played there prior to injury. Callum Slattery, Jamal Lowe and Davis Keillor-Dunn have all featured in that role too. The Owls also took Liverpool winger and three-cap Northern Ireland international Kieran Morrison on loan this season. Leeds did not want Gray to waltz into the starting XI, but work to earn his spot.
"There's going to be significant competition, and people maybe overlook this and say send him somewhere where he's going to play every minute of every game," said Taylor. "Fine, but that's not the real world, because he comes back here or in a year or two years and Premier League squads are competitive. So actually, how about we send him somewhere where he can't just coast through the week, where he has to perform every day in training to make sure he's in the squad first and foremost on a Saturday, and then try and stay in the team? And the only way you do that is by performing.
"Now that might be quite an intense way of looking at it for such a young player. But if we've got aspirations for him to come and do that in a Premier League club, that's what it takes. You've got to be at it every single day to get into a team."
Taylor recalls Wednesday showing a real desire to get Gray in, which he likes far better than when Leeds have to try and sell the idea of loan to another club. The proximity of Sheffield allows Gray to continue his education once a week in the Academy at Thorp Arch, so Taylor or any of the staff involved with young players can check in on how he's finding it. But there's a level of trust, too.
"Part of lads going out on loan is to develop off the pitch as well, to a certain extent, and not to be mollycoddled," said Taylor. "After a week or two I always say to them that I'll be hands-off, but they know they've got the safety net here and can call me with any issues. We'll have a coffee during the time before January to check in. If there are issues I'll go into training grounds and sit with managers to find out what the problems are and try to resolve. We've had plenty of them over the years.
"But ultimately Harry is a Sheffield Wednesday player and we let him be. We don't want him to be in that environment and for him to feel like he's above them, if that makes sense. Yes, believe you're still a Leeds player. Yes, we're still monitoring you. Yes, you're going to be coming back into a Premier League environment but we're trusting Sheffield Wednesday to look after him. We have conversations openly about what they're doing and how they're doing it. There's constant communication."
Leeds United's head of football analytics Bikash Deb and his team have created a loans section on the club's in-house platform, so all of Gray's data and that of players temporarily playing away can be accessed and monitored by staff. In the Academy canteen, screens display footage of Leeds youngsters in action for their loan clubs, whether in League One or the National League North.
"It's really good for the other lads to see," said Taylor, who believes reports of how players are getting on during youth loans is creating intrigue among those still at Thorp Arch. There have already been cases of youngsters getting a very early taste of the men's game and benefitting. Midfielder Ken Mensah, still only 17, was sent off last season and due to sit out a handful of academy games until Leeds had a bright idea.
"Ken was only a first year so 16, 17, and through Alex Purver, our 18s coach who plays for Scarborough, we were like 'could Ken come and train at York with the first team group?' Scarborough Athletic are National League North, so it's a very good level. I know the manager Jono Greening, Alex is there and we made sure Callum [Williams, academy player care] went with him because he was only young. And because he did really well, he actually ended up getting involved in some of the games. He was on the bench. He played some minutes, so it was an incredible experience.
"We've got another lad, Jacob Watson. He's only a scholar but can go on a work experience loan - like a youth loan, but a bit more flexible. He's gone to Stockton Town [Northern Premier League], which is a really good level. He's playing men's football. I don't think people realise the step that he's made from playing, sometimes not playing under 18s, to going and playing men's football in a league like that. His manager texts me after they beat Bury - 'he's been absolutely fantastic for us.'"
Watson, 17, scored his first senior goal in a win over Gateshead in October, was named Player of the Month and his stint with Stockton has been extended by a further month.
Leeds have several players out on youth loans at present, as well as the much-publicised temporary, or potentially permanent moves made by first team squad players in the summer. When it comes to the latter Taylor and Leeds want to see value increase so the club can realise financial benefits. As for the former, Leeds want to give young players a platform to build the foundations of a long career.
"You just never know until you give these lads opportunities," he said. "Whether it's opportunities in the Northern Premier or opportunities in our first team. The biggest factor in people having a career at whatever level is opportunity. Because if they don't get an opportunity, they'll never have a career."
