Maybe we can explain this season through the pecking order that never allows Leeds in its upper reaches for long. The 1980s were revenge for the Revie era. The 2010s were revenge for the millennium. This season is revenge for last season, and Stuart Dallas' knee is a symbol of what it has cost.
Some players get a moment like this once in a career. Most right-backs get them never. But Leeds United's return to the top has been punctuated by days of Ayling dragging us there.
Marcelo Bielsa, of course, will never give up, and that's why they say he's going to lose his job.
Bielsa's was the cuddle seen around the world, and in a pandemic that has driven so many people apart from each other just looking at Quiroga in the grip of what Gabriel Batistuta once called Bielsa's 'soul hug' hit different.
Bielsa always says two challenges face Leeds in the Premier League. When up against richer and more accomplished opponents, Leeds have to force them to play worse. And when other teams try to force Leeds into playing worse, Leeds have to maintain their own game.
I was nervous as a sixteen year old going to games, when I didn't know the unwritten rules, and I was nervous now, walking down under the station and over the river, not sure if the rules were still the same after eighteen months.
What was simple was promotion and staying up and annoying people. Those ambitions generated their own momentum and gave Leeds ample opportunity to piss people off. But what are we even doing now?
I know Bielsa will always love Newell's the most, and one football fan to another I respect that he'll never change. But dear me Leeds must run them close.
We didn't get a flood of second half goals, but we did get the Strid at full power, Raphinha scoring with the roar of a river through a gorge. His footwork opened West Brom's defence like a vista over moors; the noise of the ball in the net was as pure and monstrous as a kestrel snatching a rat.
This weekend Leeds United did not beat Chelsea, or play very beautifully, but Leeds fans are happy anyway. Why? The answer could be complex but simply it's Bielsa. And to Bielsa, always resisting the cult of his personality, that was never the point.