Oli McBurnie has sent a couple of tweets over the course of the Daniel James transfer saga.
First he exclaimed that the winger was “not going anywhere” before deleting the tweet shortly afterwards.
Then, last night, after the deal collapsed, he sent a celebratory tweet of him and Daniel James, which he also later deleted.
Even later, he got into a ding-dong with two Leeds fans who accused him of sending and deleting a tweet bragging about James staying.
One Leeds fan said, “Firstly, even tweeting what you did in the first place is bad enough, but then to delete it too? How can you actually brag about your ‘mate’ being forced to stay somewhere he doesn’t want to be? You’re a disgrace, pal.”
McBurnie replied to the Leeds fan saying, “Nice try” followed by an emoji crying with laughter.
Another Leeds fan tweeted back with a comment supposedly made by McBurnie, where he said, “I knew Dan would stay and he’s staying, simple as that.”
McBurnie replied to this claiming that it had been fabricated, saying “Photoshop getting better these days.”
OPINION
Some footballers are better off social media and Oli McBurnie might be one of them. We know for a fact that he sent two tweets about the James transfer that he had to delete shortly after sending them. As for the supposed message exchange illustrated in the Leeds fan tweet, we’re not so sure, but McBurnie has history. He obviously wanted James to stay at Leeds but he must know it’s not wise for a player to start getting involved when the club is trying to do business. The fact that he deleted both of his tweets either show he’s wise after the event or that someone at Swansea has had a word in his ear. Given his history over the course of this transfer they might want to tell him to delete his account and concentrate on his football. The big loser in all of this is James, who clearly wanted the move to Leeds to go through and now has to try and re-integrate himself back into the Swansea set-up. At least in McBurnie he’ll have an ally.