Pontus Jansson issued an intriguing response when asked whether he will still be at Leeds United next season.
Pontus Jansson issued an interesting response when asked by Swedish outlet Expressen whether he will still be at Leeds next season, admitting that it would have been nice to go and play in the Premier League.
The Whites will be playing Championship football next year after they suffered a devastatingly-dramatic defeat in the semi-final of the play-offs, having already missed out on automatic-promotion in the final weeks of the regular season.
One of the defining images from the loss at Elland Road against Derby was Jansson heading over to the opposite touchline to the tunnel to sit against the advertising boards after the full-time whistle. His bewildered facial expression summed up how most Leeds fans felt about the game.
And with Jansson one of the marquee names within Marcelo Bielsa’s squad, many supporters are now fearing the possibility of the centre-back leaving the club this summer. And when asked about his future, the cult-hero seemed to suggest that he has plenty of thinking to do.
“We’ll see,” he told Expressen. “Now it is the national team and then I must have a holiday. We will enjoy it. It would have been fun to play in the Premier League but I have three years left on my contract so it’s just stupid to talk about anything else. We’ll see what happens.”
He went on to be asked whether he feels that he is good enough to step up to the Premier League. And interestingly, he suggested that it may be time to consider a fresh opportunity.
“It is for others to judge but I have always believed in myself so I think so. It’s like having played in Malmö for four, five seasons. You can do everything and then you want to have a new challenge. But we’ll see,” he added.
Of course, every key player within the Leeds squad is likely to be considering their future at this stage of the summer. It is going to be incredibly difficult to deal with missing out on promotion – Jansson alluded to the fact that he is angry about the loss and insisted that he is still crying as a fan.
It would be a big boost for Leeds if Jansson did end up staying beyond this summer. He looked to be back towards his best for much of this past season, and he is clearly a huge presence within the team.
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