Dan James to Leeds United – a transfer two and a half years in the making thanks to Bielsa’s ‘fixation’ - The Athletic 31/8/21

 

Adam Crafton, Phil Hay, and Stuart James

Marcelo Bielsa’s famous Spygate press conference was the definition of information overload. So much detail in 66 minutes and for the journalists who sat through the presentation, how best to collate it in written form? For days and days, the new angles were endless.

As the dust settled, a more peripheral observation came to the fore. While Bielsa was standing in the meeting rooms at Leeds United’s training ground, the small audience in front of him spotted something on the overhead projector screen behind him: a file from a club laptop marked with the name of Daniel James. On the night when Bielsa decided to show the world his inner sanctum, a little transfer news slipped out too.

This was mid-January in 2019, Bielsa’s first winter transfer window in England. There had been a handful of reports linking Leeds with Swansea City winger James but visual confirmation that Bielsa was analysing him left no doubt. A little over a fortnight later, the club had the player at Elland Road, pictured, smiling, ready to sign and unaware that an ambush was coming.

When it crossed the line on Tuesday, James’ transfer to Leeds from Manchester United was genuinely two-and-a-half years in the making, a saga like very few others.

For Victor Orta, Leeds’ director of football, the timespan felt longer than that. He and his scouting team had first been tipped off about a quick and nimble youngster at Swansea several months before their first bid went in. A talent report based on under-23 matches and a little first-team exposure tempted Orta to dig deeper. James had little in the way of goals or assists but Orta commissioned a full analytical review and the results were encouraging. James had potential. At the right price, the then 21-year-old was worth a punt.

Bielsa agreed and on the last day of that January 2019 window, Leeds thought a transfer was under control. Terms were agreed and Bielsa was confident enough to talk about James during a pre-match press conference, staged at the same time as the player was undergoing a medical. Bielsa later swore with hindsight that he would never be tempted to discuss a prospective signing again, not until the transfer was official. Shortly before the 11pm cut-off, a last desperate call was made to Swansea. Communication had dried up and the mobile went to voicemail. James to Elland Road collapsed. Not to be — until last week, when Cristiano Ronaldo and Manchester United brought Bielsa’s interest in the Welshman to life again.

This escalated rapidly over the final weekend of the summer transfer window, as clubs across the Premier League became aware that United were seeking to offload players and raise funds. Brighton, whose head coach Graham Potter had managed James at Swansea, have registered a long-standing interest but felt a permanent deal for him was too expensive. Other clubs, including Everton and Crystal Palace, briefly thought a loan may be feasible. In Leeds, however, Manchester United found not only an interested party but willing buyers. Leeds have not had a vast pot of cash available to dip into this summer, spending significantly only on Junior Firpo from Barcelona, but the club have always been prepared to make moves happen when it involves a specific long-term target of Bielsa and Orta.

Leeds’s chances of signing James were enhanced by a positive relationship with the ICM Stellar Group agency, who represent not only James, but also Leeds players Luke Ayling and Patrick Bamford.

On Saturday, following the announcement of Ronaldo’s signing the day before, Leeds made an initial enquiry to see whether James could be tempted away from Old Trafford. However, Solskjaer, who planned to include James in his starting line-up against Wolves, reassured the Welshman he would form part of his squad going forwards. As such, James left Leeds with the impression he would not be open to leaving Manchester United.

Behind the scenes, however, Leeds remained hopeful that the position may change and a turning point arrived following Manchester United’s 1-0 victory at Wolves on Sunday afternoon, when James was replaced shortly after half-time. Following the match, The Athletic has learned James was informed that Leeds remained interested and that United made clear he would be a long way down the pecking order in his position at the club should he remain at Old Trafford. James was surprised by the speed of the upheaval but by Monday morning, he had come to realise his future would need to lie elsewhere.

United, for their part, knew some attacking players would be limited in their playing time following Ronaldo’s arrival and saw the need to be direct and transparent with James as he was the one forward player who could command a fee at United’s value at short notice. It was also felt the move was in the interest of all parties. Leeds, who had been informed only 48 hours before that James would not come to the club, were reluctant to make a formal bid until the player directly made clear his preference to join them. James phoned Orta at Monday lunchtime and Leeds immediately set to work.

Leeds’ sporting director Orta held calls with Manchester United’s transfer negotiator Matt Judge, while United’s football director John Murtough was also involved. Within an hour, Leeds made three different bids, each rising incrementally, before the clubs compromised on an initial fee of £25m.

Swansea will receive a cut of Manchester United’s end, worth an estimated £1.5 million, as they negotiated a 15 per cent sell-on of the profit of any future sale when selling James two years ago. For Manchester United’s negotiating team, this is considered a win for a club who have often struggled to find sell-on value for their players in recent years but it is also a reflection of just how fixated Bielsa can become on an individual he believes would thrive in his system.

The arrival of James means it is possible that Leeds will seek to shift a player out of the club in the final hours of the window. Helder Costa, the winger signed permanently from Wolves last summer, is most likely to go. Valencia have tracked the 27-year-old all summer, and negotiations would be orchestrated by agent Jorge Mendes, but senior sources at the Spanish club insisted on Tuesday afternoon that a deal remains a way off, albeit not impossible.

On the morning of the January deadline in 2019, Swansea were prepared for the day from hell.

Their chairman, Huw Jenkins, was facing up to the possibility of a string of departures, all sanctioned by the Welsh side’s American owners, Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan. Leroy Fer, Wilfried Bony and Jefferson Montero were all primed to leave. Swansea needed money and salaries off the wage bill following the previous summer’s relegation from the Premier League — so much so that they were willing to allow James, a very exciting prospect, to join a fellow Championship side on loan.

The terms of the deal Leeds struck for James were very much in their favour. The Yorkshire club would sign him on loan with an obligation to take James permanently for a little under £10 million if they were promoted to the Premier League at the end of that season. The transfer would earn Swansea a £1.5 million loan fee but, as Jenkins discovered a couple of hours before the deadline, the first of two £750,000 instalments was not due to be paid until the summer. In effect, James would aid Leeds’s pursuit of promotion for the best part of four months without them paying a penny beyond his weekly wage.

James, who was 21 and whose family were based in the Yorkshire village of South Cave, an hour east of Leeds, arrived at their Thorp Arch training ground for a medical around 2pm on the window’s last day. Time was tight but adequate, helped by a routine and successful medical. He picked the No 21 shirt and was driven down to Elland Road to be pictured with it (that top is still thought to be in the possession of a member of Leeds staff).

He carried out a club-media interview, though none of it ever saw the light of day. Time ticked on and James sat patiently, eating a Chinese takeaway in the Leeds boardroom and waiting for Swansea to send through the last few pieces of paperwork. Many of James’s friends are Leeds fans and he received endless text messages, including from people who had not been in touch for years, asking for confirmation.

James told the official Manchester United podcast last season: “When you watch deadline day on TV, watching your own face, it is weird. It was surreal and strange. I thought it was done, because I had signed my contract. Then I got told there was one more piece of paper that needed to come from Swansea to Leeds for them to agree to the deal. I was told it would be done. At one minute to 11pm, I was just thinking, ‘What is going on?’ Then they (Leeds executives) came in and Victor Orta was very upset. He was upset about what had happened. It was so strange. It was crazy — a long day.”

Jenkins’ relationship with Swansea’s owners was hanging by a thread. It seemed to him that the outgoing deals they were attempting to complete harmed the club significantly, and when he learned of the arrangement over the loan fee for James detailed above, he refused to sanction it. Leeds relented and decided to pay half of it up front — but with the deadline less than an hour away, Jenkins went dark. He stopped answering his phone and Leeds could not get hold of anyone else with the authority to approve the transfer. A few minutes before 11pm, the Elland Road club had no choice but to brief the media that the deal was off.

In disbelief, James traipsed out of Elland Road with his father Kevan and his agent, David Manasseh. The latter described Swansea’s behaviour as “very disappointing” but said James was “philosophical” about the shambles. Orta sat in tears, frustrated and worn out by a bitter, confusing anti-climax. Two days later, Jenkins resigned. It was widely anticipated that Swansea’s owners would push him if he refused to jump. And as the Welshmen contested their next game against Bristol City that same day, James sat at home in South Cave, trying hard to get his head straight.

Promotion got away from Leeds in the season when they narrowly failed to sign James. Bielsa is never inclined to put his eggs in the basket of one player but he was unequivocal with Orta while Leeds were lining up that aborted move. With James in the squad the club will go up automatically, he said. And probably win the title. He was absolutely sold on his ability.

In the summer of 2019, James anticipated another approach from Leeds. Indeed, they told him they would return for him. When Swansea lost 2-1 at Elland Road within a month of the deal falling through, James recalls the home crowd singing his name.

Yet the cat was now out of the bag regarding James’s talent and potential, most notably when Swansea played Manchester City in the FA Cup in mid-March and his direct running terrorised Pep Guardiola’s team in a match Swansea led 2-0 after an hour — before losing 3-2. Manchester United were impressed and when a scout watched James play live against Stoke, on an April day he scored what he still describes as the best goal of his career, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s interest intensified. James told the official Manchester United podcast: “United came in towards the end of the season. When I was told about it, it was like, ‘I don’t believe you, they don’t want me’. My agent told me they were interested. It was a no-brainer. I could not turn United down.”

Bielsa still never forgot about James or truly moved on from him either. Leeds’s head coach fixates like that. James is the equivalent of Ryan Kent at Rangers, another forward who seemed to be on Bielsa’s radar for window after window. At the start of this summer, Leeds’s plan to sign a left-back and central midfielder (the latter has not materialised) also left the door open to a winger if the right option came up at any stage. James, for a while, was in the first-team picture at Manchester United. Kent was playing in the Champions League qualifiers with Rangers. So if either player was to be made available, it was likely to happen with the window about to close.

Leeds had not spoken about James for a little while before last week. He started against them for Manchester United on the first day of the season and, as far as Orta was concerned, Solskjaer intended to keep him. But when the shadow of Ronaldo suddenly towered over Old Trafford on Friday, the landscape changed. At Manchester United’s Carrington training base, James has always been held in high regard. He made a startling beginning to life at the club, scoring three goals in his first four appearances. Yet that debut-season promise began to give way. Some observers will simply argue James, for all his pace, is a little limited technically to play the very highest level but there are mitigating circumstances.

James did, for example, arrive into a team only just beginning its rebuild. Manchester United began his first season dreadfully. After the first 18 matches of the 2019-20 Premier League season, Solskjaer’s side placed eighth, level on points with Newcastle and one better off than Burnley. James’ fast start created expectations that a young wide player, with only Championship experience previously, was unable to meet. Some also felt United’s thin squad at the time led to him being over-exposed. He started 26 of the first 30 Premier League matches of that debut season, before losing his place to teenager Mason Greenwood following football’s three-month COVID-19 lockdown. In his second season, he made only 11 Premier League starts, just four of them before Christmas. He personally admitted he lost his way.

James told Manchester United’s in-house podcast: “People ask me the best advice I have received and it was from Ryan Giggs. It was just two words, ‘Be yourself’. You learn off everyone, and I do, but ultimately you are here because of what you do and what you bring. I relate back to the start of the (2020-21) season and the end of the previous season, when I came away from that and tried to be like other players. I would think, ‘I need to be like him, or I need to be like that‘.

“This season, I looked back at loads of old clips of me being me and then looked at my new clips, and I recognised that I wasn’t doing it compared to when I had been bought from Swansea. It was a reality check for me. It goes back to what Giggsy said: Be yourself. Being a winger, you want to get fans off their seats. I watched myself back in some games and thought, ‘Yeah, I had a good game and kept the ball’, but I go back to another quote, ‘Being safe is so dangerous in this game’.

“Why do I need to be safe and keep the ball? In myself, I was thinking that if I lose it, the fans will be on my back. But I got into the position of, ‘I don’t care if I lose it, I will go back at the opponent and win it back’. I watched clips from Swansea and early United games and remembered, ‘When I get the ball, go at the defender; it doesn’t matter if you lose it, go at them and win it back’. It was a big change for me.”

James responded to his lack of game time, knocking on Solskjaer’s door before the Champions League home match against Istanbul Basaksehir last November and telling his manager he was ready to return to the side. Solskjaer admired his courage and awarded James more opportunities, particularly in the 6-2 victory over Leeds shortly before Christmas. Solskjaer often picked James for specific tasks in big games. James did, for instance, start home and away against Chelsea and Leeds last season, while he also excelled in starting back-to-back league victories away at Manchester City in the past two seasons. This summer, James appeared set to stay, even after Solskjaer recruited Jadon Sancho at vast expense. His work-rate set him apart from some of his colleagues and he started two of the first three Premier League matches of the season, including that 5-1 opening win over Leeds.

On Sunday, Leeds were surprised and a little anxious to see him in Manchester United’s starting XI at Wolves. There was a suspicion outside Old Trafford that Solskjaer may have been to give James one last chance to thrive in United colours, which may have then led to club chiefs assessing interest in Anthony Martial during the final days of the summer window. Indeed, there was genuine anxiety that a deal may not be feasible if James remained under the impression he had a significant role to play. Ultimately, however, the Wales international was replaced shortly after half-time on a day when his side performed poorly despite eventually winning 1-0, and he knew Ronaldo’s imminent addition would only further limit his opportunities.

James fell further down the pecking order and the board at Old Trafford started to think about recouping cash to offset what has been an expensive window. Supporters wondered whether Manchester United would sacrifice James, or seek buyers for fringe players such as Martial, Jesse Lingard or even Donny van de Beek. Leeds’s Orta began to make enquiries.

What Leeds needed to know was whether James was keen. They were open to a loan or a permanent deal but there was a little caution about the dynamics of a Manchester United player being at Leeds on a short-term basis, particularly if James did not begin life well at Elland Road. We also know that Bielsa prefers full commitment from those who play for him and the decision to cut all ties and throw himself into life in Leeds will only bode well in the coach’s mind.

Regardless of whether Leeds chairman Andrea Radrizzani was ready to approve the investment, they had to know James’s mind. Their first attempt to sign him had been traumatic. James then lost his father suddenly at age 60 a few months later, just before he signed for Manchester United. Was Elland Road the wrong place for him?

On Monday, before tea-time, the answer came back. James would take the move.

His medical was completed on Tuesday morning, before he flew off to Finland to prepare for Wales’ friendly on Wednesday.

The No 21 shirt he chose two and a half years ago was gone, allocated to Pascal Struijk, but perhaps that was for the best, all things considered.

Perhaps this was meant to be.