His name’s Dan James and he’s got no fuckin’ song. It’s a travesty, because he’s class and he deserves some manifestation of the respect the terraces have for him.

After scoring his toe poke that definitely wasn’t a toe poke on Saturday, James ran off to the Kop and high-fived a fan after a quick knee slide. Nice celebration. At the other end of the ground, a fan behind me in the Cheese Wedge chanced his arm and tried to get his own Dan James chant going. It went down as well as Led Zeppelin playing Stairway To Heaven for the first time in Belfast’s Ulster Hall, met with total apathy and boos. Hurry up and play something we know. Give us another round of the Firpo song.

James’ speculative strike gave Leeds the breakthrough they had been seeking for almost half an hour. However, it wasn’t the result of the cumulative effect that Leeds’ fairly passive dominance had on Plymouth, it was a moment of magic. Since coming back to the club just over a year ago, he’s proven very capable of producing moments of individual brilliance, evolving from an upmarket Hadi Sacko to a vital cog in Daniel Farke’s machine, and he’s got the scars to show for it.

Jesse Marsch and Leeds dumped James at the end of the 2022 summer transfer window when it briefly seemed like they had a sniff of Cody Gakpo. They didn’t. Then there was Bamba Dieng, whatever that was about. Anyway, in all of this, our flying Welshman was shipped off to Fulham on loan for the season. Newly-promoted Fulham were strengthened with a rival’s squad player and didn’t even have to guarantee to buy him at the end of it. Genius from Leeds and Marsch, whose kick-it-far-and-run-fast tactics seemed perfect for a guy who runs as fast as Dan James.

Thankfully those days are over, and with that I’m proposing that it’s fair to say that James is absolved of any guilt in relegation because, well, he wasn’t here, was he? Who knows, maybe if he had stayed and matched the four goals he scored while playing out of position the previous season, Leeds might have stayed up. But would anyone have wanted that? In hindsight, Christ no. That team, and the club itself, needed to be purged.

Had relegation prompted James to look for a move elsewhere, he would have been well within his rights to do so. But we, the Leeds fans, would have been well within our rights to consider him a busted flush, a poorly spent £25m, a fee greatly increased due to two years at Manchester United. Call it Scumflation.

He didn’t leave. He stuck around and played a vital role in the transition. For me, one of the key turning points for Farke at Leeds came when Luke Ayling headed in against West Brom to earn Leeds a point in the third game of last season. Leeds were a goal down, with Jamie Shackleton on the wing and Joe Gelhardt in attack, down to the bare bones. With just over fifteen minutes remaining, DJ swung in a wonderful cross that found the arriving Ayling and Farke was spared the fury of an already irate fanbase facing a second loss in a week (after our hero James gave away a daft late penalty at Birmingham a week earlier).

It was the first of James’ twenty goal involvements last season (thirteen goals, seven assists). Many of them were timely, important contributions. Pinpoint cross for Piroe against Watford, an instant reply to Boro’s early opener at Elland Road, the only goal in a tight win over Stoke, and even ‘c*nting one in’ from his own half against Hull.

Leeds missed him towards the end of last season as he struggled with injury. If he had been fit to start against Southampton, that day at Wembley might have been a bit different. The ‘stars’ seemed to cower on the big stage, but James tried to inject some life into Leeds’ limp performance with his late introduction, hitting the bar. He even took a nasty blow to the head and got the full Terry Butcher treatment, playing on and condemning himself to the Harry Potter dressing room nickname.

Leeds’ best XI, or at least mine, includes James on the right wing. Largie Ramazani and Willy Gnonto complete the trident behind the striker and Leeds go up, obliterating teams that dare to cross the halfway line.

His attacking play might not have the aesthetic pleasure of Cree Summerville or Georginio Rutter, but it’s effective and incredibly hard to defend against at this level. The art of defending has regressed to the point that merely running at a full-back can cause them to short circuit and do something stupid. DJ has pace, can cross and shoot, and is not afraid to make defenders sweat. He’s almost too quick, his body and brain are sometimes out of sync, but that has started to fade as he becomes more experienced.

James has the opportunity to weave his own story into the tapestry of Leeds United’s history, one not defined by transfer fees or the banality of Premier League survival. Let him play, let him run, and let him score. If we can’t think of a song for him, might I suggest someone creative writes one to the tune of Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain? Thanks. ⬢

(Photograph by Danny Lawson, via Alamy)