Three years in the making Daniel James has finally arrived at Leeds United, and after a difficult couple of seasons at Old Trafford it feels as though this is the move that always should have happened.
James is tailor-made for Marcelo Bielsa and Leeds is the perfect-sized club to step up to from Swansea City, a transfer that almost went through for £9 million in 2019, only for the deal to be scuppered at the last.
Like Wilfried Zaha before him, James has found that those raw attributes and rough edges, his pace and trickery on the wing, wasn’t quite of the required level for Manchester United. Predictions at the time that James - who played just 33 league games before leaving Swansea - needed more time to develop before moving to an elite club have proved true.
James is unlikely to agree with that view, having scored on his Man Utd debut and enjoyed the feeling – however brief – of being the next big thing at Old Trafford. Nevertheless his deadline day move to Leeds looks a far better fit and should mean the Wales international can get his development back on track.
Why Bielsa signed James
It is no secret that Leeds scrutinise players in the analytics department to ensure their signings fit the profile of a Bielsa player, and it doesn’t take a lot of digging to see why James fits the Leeds manager’s desire to play aggressive, hard-pressing football with multiple direct and piercing runs off the ball.
In terms of defending, last season James was in the 96th percentile among Premier League right wingers for disrupting opposition moves and he ranked 26th in the Premier League for pressures per 90 (applying pressure to an opposition player who is receiving, carrying, or releasing the ball) among players to have featured in at least 450 minutes.
These statistics are made all the more impressive considering Man Utd are among the worst pressers, with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer preferring his team to sit off, while by contrast Leeds topped the charts.
James is a hard-working defender, then, who loves to sprint hard at the opposition, pressing relentlessly in high areas of the pitch. Bielsa will surely only improve these stats and embrace this tenacity, especially considering James’s style of pressing is relatively unusual.
He is often criticised for running directly at individuals, rather than intelligently pressing the space, and yet this is perfect for Bielsa’s idiosyncratic man-to-man pressing system.
On the ball, James is also well-suited to his new home. Leeds pour bodies down the channels, using third and fourth-man runs to confuse the opposition as they tear forward in packs, and yet despite that nobody at the club has James’s speed.
The 23-year-old loves to run in behind, dribble past players, and surge directly into the penalty area. His pace will give Leeds a new edge.
How James can adapt and fit in
James gave an interesting interview to the Telegraph after the transfer went through in which he acknowledged it may be tough to break into the first team. He also spoke eloquently about how his development suffered at Manchester United:
“I got bought for my direct play, running in behind, running with the ball, trying things and not being afraid to lose the ball but slowly I started to come away from that and play a little safe," James said. “When I stepped back it was remembering to be direct, to be that person. Safe is dangerous in the position I play. You’re not there to do that - you’re there to score goals and make assists and run yourself into the ground on and off the ball.”
“Safe is dangerous” is a fitting tagline for the philosophy of his new manager, who will encourage James’s maverick energy while channelling some of it into more productive areas.
The tactical coaching given by Bielsa will be considerably more detailed than anything James was offered by Solskjaer, and focus is likely to be put on when to press and when to conserve, as well as exactly where and how to make those gut-busting runs.
In other words, the raw, buzzing energy of James will be put to better use with some elite coaching.
What impact can James have against Liverpool this weekend?
Leeds struggled against Liverpool last season. In the 4-3 defeat on the opening day they were lucky not to lose by a bigger margin, having lost the xG battle 3.12 to 0.33 thanks to Bielsa’s wild choice to empty central midfield in the pursuit of quick counter-attacks down the flanks.
Liverpool consistently cut through the open grass through the middle, easily outmanoeuvring the press to reveal the sort of space in the final third that very few opponents offer them.
In the second meeting, a 1-1 draw at Elland Road, a similar pattern emerged first half as Jurgen Klopp cleverly managed Leeds’ man-to-man pressing by instructing his players to make multiple fake runs, darting one way and then the other to pull players out of position. It was only fatigue that stopped Liverpool from running away with the game.
James is set for a baptism of fire, then, although the defensive issues Leeds are likely to face in a frantic, end-to-end, and high-scoring game won’t necessarily affect him. James has been signed to press hard from the front, which he will happily do for 90+ minutes, and to get behind Liverpool’s high defensive line.
Andrew Robertson is expected to overlap in attack, meaning James will likely be pinned back into a deeper starting position than he would like. But he can surely outpace Robertson and, should Liverpool push too hard for a goal, James may find space on the outside of the Liverpool centre-backs in which to sprint.
And so it could be an explosive introduction for James in a match that, in a strange sort of way, may feel like a homecoming at Elland Road.
In the Telegraph interview he spoke of the “goosebumps” he got playing there for Swansea shortly after the move fell through, when he was greeted with a standing ovation by the Leeds supporters: “It was a moment where you’re almost floating above your body and thinking ‘Is this actually happening?’”
Today, he will get that feeling once again when he is introduced as Leeds United’s record signing. It is a rare instance of a perfect match.
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