It emerged earlier today, through a report in The Sun, that Premier League side Southampton were interested in Leeds United defender Pontus Jansson as they look to life after Virgil van Dijk.
The Sun’s Alan Nixon, citing Leeds United’s intention to pay £3.5 million for Jansson’s permanent signature from Italian side Torino states: “Southampton are prepared to offer THREE times as much to attempt to buy him [Jansson] in the summer.”
News of that started to cut through Leeds United fans like a buzzsaw, such has been the influential way that Jansson has come in since arriving on loan from Torino and forged a steely partnership with Kyle Bartley that has seen Leeds United concede just 40 goals this season – only a miserly 12 being conceded at Elland Road.
Leeds fan responses and shock are understandable in light of the ‘interest’ in Jansson from a side such as Southampton looking to replace a player who could very well be one of the big acquisitions of the summer. But it is ‘interest’ that is missing one key detail.
Pontus Jansson has already agreed a three-year contract that anchors him to Elland Road until the end of the 2019/20 season – as per the club website.
Key wording in the announcement on the Leeds United website article announcing the deal said that the Whites: “are thrilled to confirm that centre-back Pontus Jansson will join the club on a permanent deal when his loan expires this summer.”
The fact that he’s signed a contract with Leeds for a transfer from Torino when his loan deal expires would seem to indicate that Southampton’s desire to “offer [Torino] THREE times as much to attempt to buy him” is somewhat a fruitless exercise seeing as the club they’d need to be dealing with is Leeds United and not the Serie A side.
