Pundit Ian Wright has claimed that someone needs to sit down and talk with Leeds United winger Dan James after his challenge.
Leeds winger Dan James was sent off after just 24 minutes against Chelsea in a game that was crucial towards their Premier League survival. The game was already 1-0 to the away side, but James’s reckless tackle so early on left the rest of his side a mountain to climb if they wanted to get anything from the match.
James has featured heavily this season, but in the absence of Patrick Bamford, he has played mainly in the centre of the attack, when he is primarily known as a winger.
After James’s horrific challenge against Chelsea so early on, Ian Wright spoke on the Kelly & Wrighty show, via MOT Leeds News, and questioned his mentality.
“I saw Dan James’ challenge. Reckless. You can see he’s fired up and wound up. If you’re telling Dan James ‘We need to do it in front of our fans’ he’s going to get carried away. Someone needs to talk him down,” Wright said.
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TIF Thoughts on Wright’s comments…
Although James has played the majority of the games this season out of position, he has been somewhat out of form, and for Leeds in the Premier League, he has the 21st highest average player rating (6.64), he has the 11th most successful dribbles on average per game (0.6) and he has the sixth most shots on target on average per game (0.5), as per Sofascore.
Leeds have struggled this season, and they currently sit in the bottom three with one game to go, so they will be relying on results elsewhere for them to remain in the top flight, but they will be without James due to his red card.
Not only did the sending off have a major impact in the Chelsea game, but for the remaining games of the season, because even though he hasn’t been in the best form, he has featured 34 times in the Premier League, so bringing in someone with less game time under their belt could be a risk for Jesse Marsch.