Former Swansea City chairman Huw Jenkins has opened up on the sequence of events that led to the high-profile collapse of Daniel James’ transfer to Leeds.

Last season, Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds side were firmly in the hunt for automatic promotion, but a poor second half of the season meant that they fell off and surrendered second place to Sheffield United.

In January, Leeds were in the transfer market for a winger and set their sights on then-Swansea winger Daniel James, in the hopes that his electric pace and trickery would be enough to see Leeds over the line and finally secure promotion back to the Premier League.

However, this deal wasn’t to be as it dramatically collapsed in the dying moments of the transfer deadline, leaving James as Swansea player until the end of the season when he signed for Manchester United.

Since then, many have been wondering what went on to cause this sudden collapse of a deal, but former Swans chairman Huw Jenkins has opened up on his thought process on deadline day back at the start of the year. Speaking to the Athletic, Jenkins had this to say on the prospective deal: "I tend to do most of the transfer deadlines from my home because it’s peace and quiet, you need time to collect your thoughts and stay clear of making mad decisions.

“I never deal well with being pushed into a corner and there was no way I was just going to let it happen for the sake of it.

“You take other things out of the equation like whatever was going on up at the Leeds end and try to make the right decisions for your club.

“I communicated with everybody at Leeds on the phone, back and forth, and I am sure they put Dan on to me as well.

“They were all trying to convince us to do the deal but I just felt from a club’s point of view, based on value and based on Graham’s success, it wasn’t right.

“I thought, the second half of the season, as it proved, he’d have a big impact for the club. Dan was just coming into his own.

"He had no guarantee of going straight into the Leeds team, and the uncertainty over whether they would buy him or not is not a good thing for a young player.

“Take all that into account and there was only one decision to be made.

"Thankfully, it worked out well for the football club and for Dan.”

The Verdict

With the benefit of hindsight, Jenkins did make the right decision for the club and player, but his decision at the time was baffling as it was clear he had a big role to play for Marcelo Bielsa’s side.

Leeds suffered hugely in the back end of last season as they seemed to run out of ideas, to which Dan James would have been a great option to have in the side.

All’s well that end’s well for Swansea and James, but those at the Leeds end of the situation will definitely be feeling seriously hard done by after these comments, especially leaving James stranded at Elland Road late on deadline day.