Just Look At His Face
Few players do less to hide their emotions: when Pontus Jansson is happy, he runs to the fans and punches the air, and when he's sad, he turns his entire face upside down and glooms away down the tunnel. If there's any doubt how he's feeling, there will be an Instagram post explaining it.
Pontus Jansson is a mood. Is he in a mood? That's not the point. He is a mood. Take him happy, take him sad, take him angry, take him funny. Take him to your Instagram and write 'same'. Happy Pontus is a big mood. Angry Pontus is a big mood. Where is Pontus, if he's not in the first team? He's in his feelings, that's where. And what's he feeling? Well, exactly.
You only have to mention Pontus Jansson in connection with either an injury or a transfer rumour for armchair students of body language and psychology to start offering theories about his current state of mind. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that; we all watch football, but we don't only watch the feet and the ball. The question is, what do people see, and why?
This week, with Pontus, we had both flavours: first the injury, a back or muscle strain that kept him out of the match at Swansea City; and a story from Sweden, claiming Leeds had accepted a bid of around £5 million for him from Krasnodar in Russia, but Jansson had declined to move. Phil Hay offered an alternative story; Krasnodar had bid close to £10 million, but Leeds United had turned it down.
One or the other, the injury or the transfer rumour, would have been enough. The Sale of Pontus is up there with The Tragedy of Pontius Pilate as a matter that will take its course whatever we may wish otherwise; one day, it is believed, Jansson will wash his hands of us and move to the Premier League — presumably English, but perhaps now Russian — the way Pontius Pilate washed his hands as Jesus was led away to be crucified. Jansson's transfer perhaps won't be that dramatic, but I've read some chilling stories about sports science in Russia.
Either way, the feeling is it's going to happen whether we like it or not, and until it does, every whisper of interest will be analysed and argued about. Is the fee enough? Can we sign a replacement? Does Marcelo Bielsa even want him? How long ago did his heart leave, anyway? Is this the real reason why he didn't play at Swansea — the Malmo thing is just a front, and he's miserable at being denied his boyhood dream of playing for Krasnodar?
The Mysterious Absences of Pontus are almost as worthy of capitals as his Transfer Tragedy. Jansson is a rare player in that he can never be injured, despite arriving from Torino with a fragile knee; there's always something more to it. There are Leeds fans who will go to their graves refusing to believe Jansson was concussed against Preston last season, just as Bielsa will go to his begging forgiveness from Hernan Crespo. His latest minor injury was quickly dismissed, too; if Jansson had a back injury, it was said, it was obviously the hump. He was seen scowling. He didn't do the fist pump thing after a game. He's livid about not playing ahead of Gaetano Berardi. Now there's a transfer involved. If he doesn't start at Norwich City, no doubt his face will turn as pink as the away dressing room walls, then purple as he finds himself arm wrestling Salim Lamrani in a rage (Pontus, I would strongly advise taking an actual gun if you're starting that gunfight).