James felt ‘terrible’ after his red-card challenge – Marsch
LEEDS United boss Jesse Marsch said Daniel James felt “terrible” after his red card against Chelsea on Wednesday night.
Wales star James was sent off for a studs-up challenge on Mateo Kovacic in the first half at Elland Road - Leeds’ second red in as many games. The home side were already 1-0 down to Thomas Tuchel’s side when James clattered into the Blues midfielder.
Replays showed James took the ball first but the force of the challenge saw him catch the Croatian nastily.
James could be seen mouthing the words “I got the ball” to referee Anthony Taylor, but to no avail. The Londoners went on to cruise to a 3-0 win and push Leeds ever closer to relegation.
Kovacic is now set to miss the FA Cup final with Liverpool on Saturday, and despite believing James’ tackle had no malice in it, Marsch revealed that the former Manchester United winger felt awful in the aftermath, adding that he said he didn’t mean it.
He said: “Dan said he didn’t mean to do it, he was just trying to be aggressive to win the ball and caught him in a little bit of a bad way. Dan feels terrible.”
Pundit Martin Keown suggested James’ rash challenge comes with playing for Leeds United.
Keown said the aggressiveness was not something seen in James during his time at Old Trafford with Manchester United.
“This is the thing. You want your players at boiling point, but you don’t want them to boil over,” said Keown.
“It’s something he didn’t really do at Manchester United, I don’t know whether it comes with playing for Leeds.
“A part of that getting stuck in and getting around people. But at the moment it’s costing them. They’ve had a catalogue of injuries, down to 10 men again, everything that could go wrong in this game went wrong.
“You look at the fixtures and what’s coming up and it does feel like now it is starting to fall apart for Leeds.”