“Absolutely Stunned” Leeds Accepted This Bid But I Can See The Sense

Earlier this week it was confirmed that Leeds United had seemingly accepted an offer during the summer transfer window for centre-half Pontus Jansson.

The 27-year-old Swedish international confirmed the interest in him himself in a recent interview with TV4 journalist Andreas Sundberg and the reporter spoke about the conversation with BBC Radio Leeds on Tuesday.

“I asked him about Krasnodar and he said, ‘It was an interesting offer and it was a lot of money but after he thought a lot about it, he wanted to stay at Leeds’.”

There was a fair bit of speculation about Jansson over the summer of course, but confirmation that Leeds possibly accepted the undisclosed offer simply caused confusion for many as he has gone on to play a key role in manager Marcelo Bielsa’s start to life in the Championship campaign of 2018/19. It must be said the assumption an offer was accepted could be wide of the mark, all players know of speculated interest in them through agents surely, it doesn’t mean it became concrete.

The key comment in the reactions above for me is the belief that the club did decide to let Jansson choose himself on the basis of finding it completely believable that Bielsa is a man who wants 100% focus and dedication. He’s already shown he can be cut-throat when needed in terms of our best interests of getting a result, but equally, he doesn’t hold a grudge based on a single performance.

So it’s no great leap for me to think he’d take that approach to transfer offers and if a player thinks the grass is greener that’s not the commitment he wants. Whether an approach was made or not, if Bielsa’s thinking is anything like that, he’d have been pleased with Jansson’s choice.