The USMNT hopeful keeping his club’s survival alive in the Premier League

A massive supergiant star can only get so big. Once it reaches a certain point in its expansion, the forces keeping its structure stable fail due to the force of its own gravity, and it begins to collapse in on itself. This is known as a neutron star. Aside from black holes, they are the Universe’s densest stellar objects.

If the neutron star, this relatively tiny yet incredibly dense sphere of whirring stardust, begins emit beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its poles, it is known as a pulsar.

Pulsars spin at ferocious speeds: PSR J1748−2446ad, discovered by a Mr Hessels on November 10, 2004, is the fastest-rotating pulsar we know about, completing 42,981 revolutions per minute, which for those of you who don’t wear bow ties and aviation goggles to work, equals out as one full rotation every 1.3959 milliseconds.

Nobody has, to my knowledge, measured Brenden Aaronson’s rotation speed, but when he gets going, PSR J1748−2446ad has a real run for its intergalactic currency.

United are surpassing all expectations this season, and they sit outside the relegation zone at the time of writing, having lost just 2 games in their last 13, against Newcastle United (4-3) and Arsenal (4-0). They are also 9 points from the relegation black hole and look a lot more stable than both West Ham United (18th) and Nottingham Forest (17th), the latter of which took a 3-1 beating from The Whites just last weekend.

It’s simple to track Leeds’ season so far: prior to the 29th of November, they bumbled along as any newly-promoted team might do, winning a game, drawing another, and losing three. They tracked at under a point a game, and had won just 3 of 13, losing 8.

Then things changed. At half-time against Manchester City, with Aaronson and company 2-0 down away from home and staring another loss in the face, the manager, Daniel Farke, switched from a 4-man to a 3-man defence, played two strikers, and cut out the dithering, dangerous play around the back, opting for a more route-one style, at least in certain moments. Leeds revolutionised their play and competed toe-to-toe with City for 45 entertaining minutes that saw Guardiola dig into his anxious head-scratching routine. They scored two goals in that time and lost only to a last-gasp strike from Foden.

From then on they have battled with the best, and have won more games (4) than they have lost (3), including going unbeaten in a run against Chelsea, Liverpool (twice), Sunderland, Brentford, Palace, and Manchester United.

Brenden Aaronson has been a big part of this revival. The USMNT international has played a huge role in the team’s positive run, scoring goals (4), getting assists (3), and generally causing chaos (lots) with a new-found doggedness and strength in his play that has rewritten the narrative around him and his future in Leeds.

Once a cast-off and a central figure of the fans’ ire around the playing squad that once included a chugging Weston McKennie and a frustratingly injured Tyler Adams, he has become an undisputed member of the starting XI; spinning like a pulsar, his intricate play and ability to squirm out of challenges and find space in congested areas of the pitch is exactly what Leeds fans have been begging to see from the player who has, on many occasions, spoken more about how he can be great than showed what he is actually made of.

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At present, Aaronson is not part of the USMNT’s plans for the upcoming World Cup, to be played on home soil. However, if he keeps spinning the way he is and drags Leeds out of danger, Mauricio Pochettino has one serious decision to make.

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