The 27-year-old’s weekend goal takes his overall contributions to 20 for the season. That matches last season’s tally — the most productive campaign of his career to date — and there are still six games to play. James has redefined himself across these two terms back in the Championship.
After leaving Swansea City in 2019 as a 21-year-old, James struggled to deliver eye-catching numbers in the final third. Across four Premier League seasons, stretched between Manchester United, Leeds and Fulham, James produced 12 goals and 12 assists in 6,508 minutes. That’s an average of one goal or assist in virtually every three full matches (271 minutes) he played.
Since August 2023, in the second tier, he has 40 goal involvements across 5,010 minutes. He is scoring or assisting once every 125 minutes. Yes, the opposition he has been facing is inferior to the defences he played in the Premier League, but this drop was an opportunity he wanted to take by the horns.
Nobody (with over 1,200 league minutes) is taking more shots at goal, per 90 minutes in the Championship than James. For every full game he completes, James has averaged 3.5 efforts. Only four players in the entire division average three or more shots per match.There was something a little less surprising about Daniel James’s latest goal-of-the-month contender.
It was another beauty amid the Leeds United winger’s 11-goal season, but the lack of surprise emerged after being briefed by the man himself.
James sat down with The Athletic at Leeds’ Thorp Arch training ground two days ahead of the lunchtime kick-off at Luton Town. There’s a laptop in front of us, which has videos of James’s goals and assists from this season cued up.There was something a little less surprising about Daniel James’s latest goal-of-the-month contender.
It was another beauty amid the Leeds United winger’s 11-goal season, but the lack of surprise emerged after being briefed by the man himself.
James sat down with The Athletic at Leeds’ Thorp Arch training ground two days ahead of the lunchtime kick-off at Luton Town. There’s a laptop in front of us, which has videos of James’s goals and assists from this season cued up.
