Daniel James looked like butter wouldn’t melt after his reckless challenge earned him a red card in Wednesday’s 3-0 defeat to Chelsea - it’s hard to understand why he looked so shocked after seeing the replay. Did he get the ball? Yes. Could he have easily broken Mateo Kovacic’s leg with a dangerous and unnecessary follow through? Also yes.
This is a tightrope that the Welshman has been walking for some time, challenged to lead an aggressive press and force defenders into loose passes. Jesse Marsch’s pressing style is centred around committing to your man with no holding back, and if that means clattering into them or getting turned and taken out of the game then so be it.
James did it in April against Crystal Palace, flying in on Joel Ward with a late and high tackle which led to a coming together and yellow cards for both. He did the same to Tyrone Mings in March and he’s been doing so all season.
READ MORE: Martin Keown slams ‘unbelievable’ Daniel James tackle and claims Leeds United look ‘doomed’
In fact, a lot of the players have been doing it all season: walking the tightrope between aggressive pressing and outright recklessness. Leeds have now picked up 100 cards this season - 97 yellow and three red - the first time a club has ever done that in the Premier League.
In two of their most crucial games - at Arsenal and against Chelsea - as the side are low on confidence and fighting for points against teams far superior to them, players have seen the red mist descend and paid the price. Luke Ayling was also rightly sent off for a mindless two-footed lunge on Gabriel Martinelli, for the side he was captaining on his 500th appearance in professional football who were already 2-0 down.
Kalvin Phillips received a strong yellow just before half-time on Wednesday for scything down Chelsea’s Christian Pulisic, with absolutely no intention of taking the ball. These are the kind of tackles that can seriously injure a player, and if they do they usually lead to a straight red.
The problem is that both Marsch and the Leeds United fans look at aggression as a measure of a player’s commitment to the fight, as a barometer of how they have performed. And when the players are being outclassed in footballing terms, their aggression is how they try to make an impact - but it’s starting to cross a line.
After Wednesday’s defeat, former Leeds man Jermaine Beckford highlighted as such on Sky Sports. "I briefly touched on it, it's passion being shown in the wrong way," said Beckford.
“Everything that's happened in the last few games, the Man City game, the Arsenal game, obviously tonight as well when we see Leeds United go behind. The frustration comes out and players are trying to get in front of opposition players and they are trying to show the manager that they are in here for the long haul.
"They are trying to show that 'look I'm in here to do exactly as you want and I'm working as hard as I can, I'm doing it for the team and for the fans', it's just a split second a blink of an eye, it comes out in the wrong way.
"It is something that needs addressing, ever so slightly, but it is difficult because there is a thin line between showing passion in the right way and getting it wrong. Today [the Chelsea game] that was definitely wrong, it was the wrong way, but there is an element of that physicality of the game that I don't want to see lost. It just has to be done in a sensible manner."
Marsch is understandably not pointing fingers after these defeats. To do so would lower morale at a time when every player available needs to believe that, by doing what he tells them, they can win enough points in the next two games to stay up.
Leeds have to be aggressive on Sunday when they host Brighton, but to walk that tightrope of hard tackling without risking dismissal requires a level of discipline that has seemingly gone. Liam Cooper said after Wednesday’s loss that Leeds are in a fight, and that ‘it doesn’t have to be pretty, it doesn’t have to be nice’. It doesn’t, but it does have to be disciplined.
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