Joe Thomlinson, Patrick van Straaten and Chris Hamill discussed Premier League ‘wonderkids’ on the most recent edition of Football Daily’s Sunday Vibes and they spent some time talking about Leeds United goalkeeper Illan Meslier during the show.
Meslier spent the 2019/20 season on loan at the Yorkshire-based club from French side Lorient. He made 10 Championship appearances that term, helping the Whites to win the Championship and earn promotion to the Premier League for the 2020/21 campaign.
Following that promotion, he moved to Elland Road on a permanent basis and he has been a key member of Marcelo Bielsa’s side this season, with the 20-year-old stopper playing every minute of Leeds’ opening five Premier League games this term.
Meslier has already received plenty of praise from some this season and Van Straaten was also full of praise for the £7.2m-rated ‘keeper during this recent edition of Football Daily’s Sunday Vibes, saying:
“‘Keepers are hard to find and ‘keepers who can play with their feet at 20 and are also decent shot-stoppers are pretty special.
“I wrote a scout report over the summer on the prospects, I felt, for the promoted sides. I said – I’m quite bullish on Leeds – I think we all think that they’ll stay up and do pretty well but I also said – they play such a high line, they’re so dependent on possession, I think they’re going to catch some beatings. Just because teams are going to get behind them in the Premier League.
“When you’ve got a ‘keeper who is able to compensate for a really aggressive defensive line, that’s pretty exciting so I think Meslier, you know, he’s very experienced for his age, he’s got a pretty rounded skill-set.”
Have you been impressed by Meslier this season?
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TIF Thoughts on Van Straaten’s comments about Meslier…
Judging by what Van Straaten had to say, it seems as though he thinks Meslier’s skill-set is well-suited to how Leeds play and it also seems as though he thinks that the Whites stopper’s age makes him an exciting prospect.
While Meslier has played every minute of Leeds’ 2020/21 Premier League campaign thus far, the Frenchman is also the youngest goalkeeper to have played a single game in the Premier League this term.
On top of that, he has earned the joint-10th-highest overall WhoScored rating of any Premier League goalkeeper so far in what is only his first Premier League season.
With all of this in mind, we feel it’s understandable why Van Straaten seemingly thinks so highly of the 20-year-old and it will be interesting to see how he develops over the course of the 2020/21 campaign.