How much more can Leeds ask of Jackie Harrison?
Somehow the player who turns up every week fit and strong, runs his arse off in training and never stops working in the games, becomes a player people think is expendable. But hell, we would miss him if he was gone.
Despite all the hype around transfer deadline day, and the frantic attention given to last minute £106,800,000 transfers and laughing at Everton, if 'winning the window' means anything it's letting 31st January go by you in a swim, occasionally picking up the phone to text an agent back: 'Nah'.
Leeds United, with Max Wöber, Georginio Rutter and Weston McKennie all signed, filmed and posted on TikTok, had little to worry them beyond a few enquiries for Charlie Cresswell, and Brenden Rodgers glaring in through the window at Jackie Harrison. While Sean Dyche was still growling regrets into Ian Woan's shoulder in their new AirBnB by the Mersey, the lights were out at Elland Road, everyone gone home with a good transfer window behind them, and an anxious wait to play Nottingham Forest ahead.
Everyone, that is, except our friend Jackie Harrison.
We only found out the next evening, from The Athletic, that what we thought was peace was not at all. Leicester City's bid for Harrison, hopefully having gone much higher than the initially reported £20m, had not been refused. A move to the Midlands had not been ruled out. And for a while, as darkness fell, it was closer to being ruled in:
On Tuesday evening, Harrison actually made the trip to Leicester’s training ground, pre-empting the possibility that he could be sold at the last minute. City got a medical going. Then, with the clock counting down, Leeds reached the decision to keep him and the prospect of him leaving finally died a death.
The one saving grace of the reverse Dan Jamesness Leeds United have pulled here is that it happened without the glare of publicity around that failed transfer from Swansea to Yorkshire. But just because there's no way of spinning this into a positive for a club-funded documentary doesn't mean it isn't harsh on Harradona. The M1 from Leeds to Leicester is a rough trip at the best of times, even if you're in some sort of luxury SUV, and going there to do nothing at best and have a physical exam at worst, and then just come back again, getting home (wherever that is now) long after midnight, sounds miserable to me. Then after a few hours of sleep it's back in for training the next day, meeting the questioning glances of thirty teammates all wondering what the hell. All that, and you didn't even want to go:
Harrison, for his part, was not agitating for a transfer or actively stating a desire to depart. By Tuesday, he was simply philosophical in realising that if Leeds wanted to cash in on him, it made sense to take up an offer elsewhere.
Who did want him to go to Leicester? Leicester, that's for sure, but from the Leeds end The Athletic's article only speaks of wishes he would be staying:
[Jesse] Marsch said twice last week that he wanted Harrison to stay put ... Director of football Victor Orta recruited Harrison from City in the first place and advised the club to keep him ... City felt from Tuesday morning onwards that the deadline was most likely to pass with Harrison remaining at Elland Road — the process had become too complicated to unravel itself in time.
The boardroom is missing from this and the answer must lie there, somewhere between Andrea Radrizzani and 49ers Enterprises, looking at a player eighteen months from the end of his contract and occupying a position where Leeds have bought reinforcements, weighing him against a bag of crisp cash. The head coach, the director of football and the player himself all wanted him to stay; but someone in the boardroom was finding Leicester's offer so hard to resist they were willing to foot the expense claim for Harrison's petrol south. Unless they're going to argue about that, too.
The resolution, according to The Athletic, was:
When the time came to put up or shut up, Leeds felt the same [as Marsch] — resolving to reject Leicester’s approach and focus on a contract extension instead.
Harrison would be entitled to be a little tougher over his contract talks now, both in terms of his increased wages — a 'fucking me around' bonus is probably due — and who he will be signing it with: the owners who wanted him to go, or not?
Whether Jackie will go hard like that is another matter. Leicester were offering him a substantial pay rise and he wasn't interested. And this is the part I find most painful. Of all the players to push away to Leicester in the middle of the night, why did it have to be Jackie Harrison? Perhaps because, of all the players, only Jackie would go quietly.