OPINION
Daniel James officially signed for Man United on Wednesday and the announcement must have been kind of heartbreaking for Leeds fans, who know how close they came to signing him in the January window.
It must be a bitter pill to swallow but there are huge positives to take from the whole saga.
When Leeds identified Jame as their top January target, not many people knew about him. He’d only just broken into the Swansea side and he was still flying under the radar.
However, it quickly became apparent that Marcelo Bielsa wanted him way more than anyone else – to the extent that they put all their eggs in the one basket.
Unfortunately Huw Jenkins smashed them all with his last-minute refusal to do a deal, despite James having completed a medical and filmed his promo video at Elland Road.
But if that was the first piece of evidence of the sort of player that Orta and Bielsa will identify between them, Leeds should do much better this summer than they have in previous windows.
Bielsa knows his side inside out now, knows exactly what he needs and is prioritising three wingers. The fact that James was identified in January is proof that Bielsa knows what he’s doing and will get the players he wants through the door.
James might go down as a missed opportunity, a what might have been if you like but, instead of focusing on the negatives, Leeds fans should see it as a huge positive – yet more evidence that in Bielsa they have a brilliant manager, one of the world’s best coaches and a man who knows a good player before others do.
It’s easy to throw money at a team, but Bielsa can obviously identify the right players before they’re in plain sight.
With a little luck – which you always need in a transfer window – Leeds will bring in three players of a similar calibre and if they do, they should win promotion under Bielsa at the second time of asking and in their centenary year.
After the James debacle, they’re due some luck.