Illan Meslier seemed like Kiko Casilla’s obvious replacement should he be banned, however, an article from Football Insider appears to have put that in doubt.
Meslier is currently on loan from French club Lorient and is just 19 years old. However, he is yet to play for Leeds United in the Championship since joining.
According to Football Insider: ‘There are doubts among Marcelo Bielsa and his coaching staff about whether the young Frenchman is capable of an extended spell in the first team.’ However, this perhaps isn’t massively surprising as he has hardly shown much faith in him lately.
However, when speaking exclusively to Goal, the 19-year-old has said: “I am ready to play at any time if there is a suspension or an injury. It will be up to me to seize the opportunities and afterwards, it is the coach who will decide.” It would appear as though the Frenchman clearly backs himself to take Casilla’s place, should that be required of course and there appears to be some evidence to back it up.
During the 2018/19 Ligue 2 season, Meslier played all 90 minutes in each game from the 26th October to 17th May 2019. Strangely, he also managed to accumulate three yellow cards in this time frame, along with nine clean sheets for the whole season. When the 19-year-old was in the side Lorient averaged 1.61 points per game.
Verdict
He’s clearly a talented young goalkeeper and is somewhat proven in the second division in France, so maybe it’s not as risky as playing a complete rookie. However, we believe that a number of Leeds fans would rather buy a proven Championship-level keeper than play Meslier, and you can hardly blame them as the side are currently just two points away from table-toppers West Brom, so they can’t afford any rookie mistakes in the net.