Tireless runner Daniel James suits Solskjær's gameplan to disrupt

Little better than ordinary on the ball the forward’s job was to throttle Chelsea attacks at source

Early on Sunday morning I was walking through my local park in south London, where around eight guys were playing football on the grass. At one stage, one of them ran clean through: round the keeper, goal at his mercy, only to roll the ball wide. “Daniel James!” he exclaimed to himself as he went to fetch it. “Daniel James,” he muttered again, shamefaced and still furious. And before long, all his mates were calling him “Daniel James” as well.

About eight hours later, the real Daniel James was charging towards goal at Stamford Bridge in that rapid but largely innocuous style of his. Has there ever been an attacking player who ran so fast while carrying so little perceived threat? When we think of the game’s great speed merchants – Kylian Mbappé, Gareth Bale, the original Ronaldo – their pace was inextricably bound up in menace. With James, by contrast, it feels entirely peripheral to his quality as a footballer. A curiosity, a party trick, perhaps even a stick to beat him with: the pace of an elastic band, and roughly the same potential for damage.

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