Pontus Jansson remains a popular figure within the Leeds fanbase despite departing Yorkshire in a fairly sour manner.
The Swede was ousted from Elland Road during the Marcelo Bielsa era after Leeds failed to secure promotion in the 2018/19 campaign, with the Argentine memorably benching him in place of Gaetano Berardi for that Championship play-off semi-final defeat against Derby.
Pontus Jansson was eventually sold to Brentford in a £5.5m deal back in July 2019 – and has now made an admission which has the potential to irk Leeds supporters.
Pontus Jansson admits leaving Leeds United for Brentford was the “best decision” of his life
Speaking on The Ealing Road Podcast, the 34-year-old has now said: “Football, you know, it’s not so often where a player calls a club and ask to come. People from Leeds, the Sporting Director and so on, they called me and said, a little bit of, like, a hint that they wanted me to leave… they called me and said we have three or four offers that we would like to talk with you and the agent about.
“I said to them directly, like, yeah, I can listen, but they have to be clubs and offers from England. If not, then I want to stay. Nothing happened and Leeds was pushing for me to leave, for different reasons. Then I said to my agent, if there’s nothing in Premier League, then we have to go down and look in the championship and see… then I told him about Brentford. Every time I played Brentford, it was so tough, so much talent, but I also felt when I played them, there was something that was missing, in the form of, mainly defensive leadership, defensive solidness, and so on. So I said to my agent, can you check with Brentford?
“He said, Brentford, what are you going to do in Brentford? That was his first reaction, then everything went quite quick, to be honest…they had to run my name through the data system and all of that, you know how Brentford works. They called back a couple of minutes later and said, yeah, all is green regarding that.
“A lot of players, when I came to Brentford that summer was saying like, why are you here? Why did you come to Brentford? I remember when I met Ollie (Watkins) in Austria when I came there, the first thing he said is, hello, welcome and nice to see you, nice to have you here, but why did you come to Brentford? When I’m looking back at it now, it’s the best decision I’ve done in my life.”
It was a move that worked out well for Jansson – who sent a message to Leeds fans in 2024 – making 58 appearances in the Championship with the Bees before going on to amass 49 Premier League appearances following promotion in May 2021.
However, after playing 120 games for Leeds and becoming a fan favourite, he could have shown a bit more respect on this occasion – supporters would have every right to be frustrated by his sheer delight at the switch to Brentford.
The truth behind what happened between Pontus Jansson and Marcelo Bielsa after that Aston Villa goal
One school of thought within the Leeds fanbase is that Bielsa was annoyed at Jansson for trying to stop Albert Adomah from scoring, during that famous 1-1 draw against Aston Villa back in April 2019.
However, the man born in Arlöv cleared that situation up during a chat with The Sun in December 2019.
Jansson – who Luke Ayling messaged after he left Brentford – said: “It was bigger in the media and in social media than in our dressing room. Marcelo came to me and said, I totally understand what you did, I would maybe do the same, but maybe try to listen to the coach next time.
“No, he wasn’t (angry). Maybe a little bit. You never know with him… when you’re on the pitch and the coach doesn’t even talk your language, sometimes it’s not easy to understand what’s being said.”
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