Manchester United close to signing Daniel James

Manchester United are close to signing Daniel James from Swansea City, according to reports in the media on Friday morning.

Because that sentence essentially sums up the only bit of the news that you are really interested in, the rest of this blog will be padding that purports to be informative, but is instead simply a sop to the notion of dwell time.

Dwell time is a phrase coined by the weirdos in marketing who want people to stay on website pages for longer, so that they can show you more adverts and claim that you watched more videos that are on autoplay, without being muted from the start. They sell these goosed metrics to advertisers, and it keeps websites like this going, you hugely entertained, and me fed.

The 21-year-old Wales international James does have some good points. Given he is young, he is likely able to improve at a fair clip when surrounded by better players. The problem here is that looking at the squad that gave Luke Shaw its player of the year award, well, what examples of great talent does he really have to learn from at Old Trafford? More signings of players with heart and skill are essential if the club are not to ruin his career.

James has pace, too, and is a direct player. That will help a United side which is slow in the legs and in the head, and if he trusts his instinct then it will be he who lifts the rest of the side. It is believed that he will cost around £15 million to sign, which could be a sign that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s legs have been cut off in the transfer market before his career as manager really gets started. James could be a good player, but let’s see what disaster it is foreshadowing.