The January transfer window opens for another year on Saturday with the Premier League landscape dramatically changed from 12 months ago.
Gone are the expectations of big-money deals taking place in mid-season – something that has in recent years become a scarcity at any rate – and instead the transfer rumour mill is grinding towards the summer.
Only a handful of clubs are genuinely looking to strengthen in this window, and of those, even fewer will seriously splash the cash. Burnley boss Sean Dyche even admitted he may stay away from deals despite new owners ALK Capital taking over the club and stating they are “very prepared to come in and support Sean and the management team”.
Yet one transfer rumour that just doesn’t seem to be going away is Daniel James’ prospective exit from Manchester United. The playmaker signed from Swansea under the noses of Leeds United in the summer of 2019 has been rumoured with a switch to Elland Road, or even relegation-threatened West Brom.
But how realistic is it that this transfer will take place? There is certainly a whiff of the rumour mill grinding aggressively hard over the red half of Manchester to churn out a possible talking point here.
James may be a bit-part player under boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer right now but that doesn’t mean he’s not important. He has made just eight appearances all season, and that includes starts in the games against Leeds and Leicester either side of Christmas Day.
James still has a part to play
The Wales international has often been overlooked in favour of Mason Greenwood, while Solskjaer’s dream set-up of having Marcus Rashford, Bruno Fernandes and Anthony Martial behind main striker Edinson Cavani pushes James even further down the pecking order.
There is a justifiable argument that when this United attack is fully fit – with Jesse Lingard also in contention for places – then there is simply no room for James. But what we so often forget when it comes to discussing a club’s “best XI” is that no elite-level side has a squad guaranteed to avoid injuries, suspensions and blips in form over what can be a 50-game season.
As we have seen over December, Solskjaer has swiftly turned around what could have been a disastrous campaign into a potential title race. And as Jurgen Klopp keeps telling us amid Liverpool’s injury crisis, you need a fattened-out squad if you are to compete on all fronts.
This is what James offers United – a dependable option in Solskjaer’s attack when others are unavailable. He provides the boss with a chance to rest his first-choice forwards during a congested fixture schedule, such as at Christmas, without the real risk of United losing ground in the league.
He is what Nemanja Matic, Odion Ighalo and now Juan Mata are to United: dependable squad players. And to lose these is to potentially lose a championship.
Solskjaer happy with his options
Of course, plenty of these transfer rumours have surfaced at a time when United are once again being linked to Jadon Sancho. The England international is a player the Red Devils have tracked for well over a year and, if the rumour mill is to be believed, Chelsea and Liverpool are interested too.
Sancho’s prospective transfer to United would naturally trigger the assumption that someone makes way for his arrival – and that someone would be James. But United are in no real position to land a big-money signing midway through the season or in the summer, with no more Champions League revenue, losses mounting from the coronavirus crisis and a manager in Solskjaer who seems happy with his squad.
Furthermore, Amad Diallo is incoming from Atalanta following a deal struck in October, with Ighalo expected to leave when his loan expires at the end of January.
The Sancho switch therefore makes as little sense as any of the big-money rumours that will circulate this month. Covid-19 and the perilous state of the game, even at the top level, puts a stopper on clubs splashing the cash.
And so, we can strap in for a month of transfer talk about a player who is unlikely to leave and a player who is unlikely to arrive.
Remember, James at 23 years old still has three years on his contract, plus the option of a further year. He is pushing for a first-team place but not demanding it, is still developing and adds to United’s quota of home-grown players.
He just isn’t the sort of player you get rid of when, in one week, half the squad could be in quarantine due to Covid.
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