Leeds United: Luke Ayling reacts to Liam Cooper's interesting CSKA Sofia reveal video | OneFootball

Luke Ayling reacted to CSKA Sofia's announcement video of Liam Cooper following his arrival from Leeds United.

Former Leeds United captain Liam Cooper has been unveiled as a CSKA Sofia after he decided to join the Bulgarian side following the expiry of his contract at Elland Road.

The defender has put pen to paper on a deal with his new club, and, as is often the case nowadays, they decided to welcome their new recruit with a video on social media.

It’s fair to say this was a rather unusual one, as Cooper would step out of a Mini Cooper, before saying ‘Cooper, Liam Cooper’ to the camera.

Luke Ayling reacts to Liam Cooper’s announcement video

Unsurprisingly, this caught the attention of some of Cooper’s former teammates, and Ayling was quick to take to Instagram story to react to the video.

The Middlesbrough right-back put three laughing emojis, as well as quoting Cooper’s line, and stating ‘love it skip’.

The pair are obviously very close from their days at Leeds, with the duo having spent the past part of eight years as teammates at Elland Road, and they both starred under Marcelo Bielsa in the team that took the Whites back to the Premier League.

Luke Ayling and Liam Cooper embark on new career paths

It’s sad for many Leeds fans to see members of the Bielsa team depart, as they will always be fondly remembered at the club for what they did.

Ayling and Cooper were both integral to those glory days, and it wasn’t just what they contributed on the pitch, as they were leaders in the dressing room and helped form a bond with the fans.

But, the time was always going to come for them to leave, and for Ayling it was in the previous campaign, as he joined Boro on an initial loan before signing permanently.

Some will argue whether it was the right decision, as he has performed well at the Riverside Stadium, but Leeds clearly wanted to go in a different direction, and whilst Daniel Farke may have been happy to keep him at the club, Ayling would’ve wanted first-team football.

It’s a similar story for Cooper. At 33, he is entering the final few years of his career, and you can understand why he didn’t want to spend that time mainly on the bench.

So, to his credit, he has decided to take on a new challenge overseas, and it will be very interesting to see how it goes for the Scotland international with CSKA Sofia.

Leeds United need new heroes to emerge

There are still some players from the previous promotion win in the squad, but most of the favourites from Bielsa’s time have moved on.

Now, the challenge for the current group is to emerge as heroes themselves to the Leeds support. Most of them went very close last season, and it’s about going one better this time around.

And, seeing the reaction to the likes of Ayling and Cooper will no doubt motivate the current team as they try to earn their place in Leeds’ history.

Farke’s side, who currently sit fourth in the Championship, are back in action at home to Burnley on Saturday.