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There is an art to managing people, and certainly people who are footballers. By definition, footballers are a different breed of person, and they have to be. The challenge comes in throwing eleven of them together and making it work, for a collective goal.

When there’s only one prize, or three in the case of gaining promotion from the Championship to the Premier League, you have to look at the things that aren’t working, or are a detriment to the sum of the parts being as successful as it should be.

In this context, the expected sale of Pontus Jansson is no real surprise. From the moment Jansson walked into Leeds United in August 2016 he was unapologetic in using his principal characteristics to wake up a dormant football club. Jansson was combative, brash, unruly and untamed, almost a caricature of himself, and if a fan on the Kop wanted to design a cartoon character of what a typical Leeds United player should look like, Jansson was pretty much it.

(Image: Alex Dodd/CameraSport)

But then maybe the one thing that made Jansson so perfect for Leeds United was ultimately his failing? And maybe that’s an indicator as to why Leeds United’s history is littered with near-misses and critical failures? When it comes to the crunch, you can’t just exist on raw emotion, much as we’d like to, it somehow needs to be channelled in the right way. Having 35,000 fans creating a cacophony of noise means nothing, when a club like Bournemouth can run things differently and grind your face into the dirt.

While Jansson ticked every box as a Leeds United player, we so wanted it to work that we had to paper over his obvious failings; an unstable temperament and a diva personality that seemingly tested tolerances within the club. On the pitch, you knew when he had lost his head, when concentration had slipped, but you forgave him because we all felt a connection. However technically gifted you are, football is a game of emotions, and while supporters are allowed to let go of theirs, who are we to insist that a footballer keeps theirs in check? When Jansson wore his heart on his sleeve, we loved him even more. But that was his undoing; a quality that a manager or a teammate, in the final standings, couldn’t tolerate.

(Image: Alex Dodd/CameraSport)

It was telling that Jansson was never made captain when his most animated qualities demanded that he should be. The trouble being, that you need a leader to be able to handle their own emotions as well as their teammate’s, to see the greater need in the team and its constituent parts. Jansson was raw and excitable, volatile and impulsive, these were great qualities when you’re riding the crest of the wave, but there’s always a downside, and dealing with adversity brought neurosis and reservation. It takes a special person to embrace both the highs and the lows so effortlessly, and with those failings we saw the human side to Jansson that we can all relate to.

The falling out with Leeds United somehow felt inevitable. A long held desire to play in the Premier League is a natural one for a footballer at any level, but particularly so with Jansson, who at times looked head and shoulders above any other player in this division. That Leeds are having to accept a £5.5million price tag from Brentford is something of a shock, and while that tells a story about the distressed seller having little negotiating power, perhaps it says something about market forces and Jansson’s true standing in the game?

Yes, Leeds could hawk their player around Premier League clubs for a couple of weeks and eke out a couple of million more, but Marcelo Bielsa wants this done quickly and his squad largely in place before they jet off to Australia. Also, if there was genuine Premier League interest in Jansson, they would have been knocking down Leeds’s door all summer, because the events at the tail end of last season suggested this day wasn’t far away.

A consequence of Leeds being such a high profile club is that Jansson’s various antics don’t go unnoticed. The fact that Brentford – with all due respect – are the only suitor as it stands, suggests that swearing live on TV, going against your manager’s wishes (with the goal conceded at home to Aston Villa) and the very public sit-in post-Derby County paints Jansson as a ticking time bomb in the eyes of Premier League clubs who can’t afford such distractions.

(Image: Alex Dodd/CameraSport)

Despite Bielsa publicly hailing Jansson’s efforts last season, in the game where everything mattered the most, he was left on the bench. We’ll never know what was behind that, but it’s no great surprise that the path from there has led to where we are today.

The question now, is where do Leeds United go from here? £5.5million isn’t enough to replace a player of Jansson’s quality, but in terms of replacing a constituent part, quality isn’t always the answer when looking at the ultimate goal. Many people have drawn comparisons with the sale of Eric Cantona for a sub-standard fee to a divisional rival, but I see a lot, also, in the sale of John Sheridan in 1989.

Sheridan, at the time, was the ultimate ‘Leeds United’ player; a mesmerising amalgam of craft, arrogance, style and malice. It was so easy to connect with him, and everybody did. But in the final count up, there was no deliverance. Howard Wilkinson identified Sheridan as a disruptive influence and replaced a brilliant player with a different kind of quality, and which immediately brought the rewards; showing that a team unit can benefit when all the constituent parts are working better together.

Maybe it is too much of a leap to suggest we face that same scenario now, but in essence, the answer you seek isn’t always the most obvious one. We all thought Jansson was the ultimate ‘Leeds United’ player, but could he really handle it? Was he the calm, measured, standard bearer that we really needed? You can find those qualities in a different kind of player and which, in due course, makes the team better. And whatever you think of the derisory £5.5million fee, you can probably find the right player for that, somewhere.

The 1981 film Gregory’s Girl was a lesson in the edict that you can’t force chemistry. You can try too hard, you can be too enigmatic, and the right answer isn’t always the one that first demanded your attention. The right answer is somewhere, maybe where you least expect it, but the harmony and interaction is what the recruitment team at Leeds United need to find, to give Bielsa the players to make the unit work.

Gregory’s Girl wasn’t the girl he thought he was looking for, it wasn’t the one who enchanted him and who he had portrayed in his own mind as the perfect one. And now Leeds United are the awkward and vulnerable one maybe looking in the wrong place. The answer is out there in someone with effortless cool and wisdom, who can sweep us off our feet in a more modest and unpretentious way. So just who is Leeds United’s man?