Leeds United: Dan James' Fulham move 'a football decision' says Jesse Marsch as he backtracks on comments at Brentford

James, who joined Leeds for £25m from Manchester United last summer, moved to Fulham on a season-long loan on deadline day.

Leeds signed Italian international Gnonto on the final day of summer trading with Marsch explaining after the Whites’ defeat to Brentford on Saturday that the transfer of the 18-year-old was only possible by letting James make the switch to London.

He said: "It was clear that if we needed to add something we needed to move something. He was garnering the most interest and it was the only way we could create flexibility to go out and add a striker."

However, the Whites boss has now appeared to backtrack on those comments, as he has now said that he is fully supportive of the decision to sanction a loan move for James.

Transfer policy at Leeds is led by director of football Victor Orta, whilst chief executive Angus Kinnear is in charge of financial decisions, with input from chairman/owner Andrea Radrizzani.

It is clear from the signings made this summer that coach Marsch also has a big influence.

“When it came to the Dan James situation, it was a collective decision and one I totally support,” he told Sky Sports.

"The thought process was ‘Is Dan going to get enough minutes?’ that he wanted to help him in his career and where we were at and what it was going to mean for him and his preparation for the World Cup.

"So the decision was made to consider moving him and then when we found the right situation for everybody we decided to move forward on it.

"Every decision we made was made by the group and I was very supportive of every decision that we made.

"It was a football decision. It wasn’t one that was easy to make because we really like Dan as a person and as a player.

"It is a [decision] that suits us and Dan best in the moment.”