Rotherham United manager Paul Warne heaped praise on Swansea City winger Daniel James after his side’s 4-3 loss at the Liberty Stadium today, naming him as one of the best players in the Championship.
James’ quality is so obvious to opposition teams now that they’re doing more and more to try and stop him. So much so that Rotherham ensured that they had three players covering our left flank when he was in possession and in the first half we struggled to get him involved in decent goalscoring positions.
It was all a bit too flat in the first half and we were caught out within the first 10 minutes, conceding from a cross that goalkeeper Kristoffer Nordfeldt. It was like business as usual really but at home you always felt that we have the quality to score a few goals. We got four but James missed two great chances to guarantee the three points earlier in the game and avoid a nervous ending as the visitors pulled a goal back to make it 4-3.
Whilst he should have scored himself, James did set up McKay’s equaliser five minutes after the restart as Swansea looked to make a quicker start to the second half.
Warne spoke highly of James, saying he’s one of the best in the league:
“The best players at the best clubs are the ones who cause you problems and he is definitely up there,”
“He will go on to have a great career, no doubt. I think he is one of the top two players in the league – my other is the Aston Villa captain (Jack Grealish). Those two win games on their own.
“He (James) absolutely annihilated us at our place – he was unplayable. I knew we had to curtail James’ pace which is a joke, it’s like he’s on a motorbike.”
Talking of trying to mark him, Warne also mentioned how he needed extra players to mark him and how much energy it required in doing so:
“I am asking my winger to double up or my sitting midfielder to drop into the space behind the full-back,”
“Because he’s so good my lads are using a lot of energy trying to stop him, then they switch the ball and go out the other way and my lads have got to run over there.
You can’t blame the United manager for wishing James’ move to Leeds had gone through in January, if he had his side wouldn’t have come up against him again this season.
“He is phenomenal talent. I wanted him to go Leeds in January because I knew we didn’t have to play them again.
“I was thinking please go to Leeds – that would have been unbelievable for me. In the nicest possible way, I don’t really need to see him in a team opposite me again.”