'I failed' - Meslier on Leeds United axe, Allardyce, transfer regret, summer exit, righting wrongs — Leeds Live 22/11/23
Exclusive: Illan Meslier speaks to LeedsLive about failing with Leeds United last season, relegation, Sam Allardyce's axe, transfer regrets and redemption
ByBeren Cross
Eighteen goals had been shipped in five matches. Javi Gracia
had been sacked. The director of football had walked. Leeds United were
careering towards relegation and being pulled apart in any batch of analysis
you happened to read, watch or listen to as April became May.
More specifically, Illan Meslier was being torn apart. After
conceding 198 goals in 107 Premier League appearances, the goalkeeper was
bearing the brunt of the anger and blame for United’s plight. And then the
Allardyce signal was beamed into the night sky.
At that point, a 68-year-old host of a podcast called No
Tippy Tappy Football, looking for a quick way to change momentum, was hardly
likely to back a young shot-stopper recruited for his ball-playing potential.
For the first time since his 2020 debut under Marcelo Bielsa, Meslier was
dropped and left to watch the Championship slide from the dugout on performance
grounds.
Six months later, Meslier has re-established himself as
United’s undisputed number one and rebuilt the bulk of the confidence he had
knocked out of him in the top flight. As he speaks to LeedsLive about his fall
and rise, he tries to remain philosophical and open-minded about more slip-ups
as a 23-year-old stopper who may not peak for another 10 years.
“It wasn't easy, to be honest,” he said. “It was a tough
season for everyone and I can't deny it was not that difficult, but in my
mindset, it's just I'm learning.
“I failed and I will maybe fail again, but how to react is
the most important [thing] and to work hard. ‘Okay, this happened, now how can
I react to this situation to become stronger and more confident?’
“For sure, it wasn't easy being relegated with Leeds, but it
is a part of football. It can happen and that's why I'm still here. I want to
be promoted with Leeds because, to be honest, the Premier League is our place.
That's why I want to give everything I can to help the club to be promoted
again.”
Eighteen players would leave Elland Road in the summer after
relegation. It was hardly a surprising turn of events when myriad clauses paved
the way out of West Yorkshire for a set of players who considered the
Championship beneath them.
After four years at the club, three seasons of conceding
more than 1.8 goals every game and an unceremonious axing by Sam Allardyce,
many expected Meslier to be among the departees. Few, if any, goalkeepers in
Europe can compete with the elite exposure Meslier has had at such a young age
and it was only a year or two ago he was considered hot property.
There was interest in Meslier’s services, he admits. He has
no interest in pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes. Exiting stage right was
something he considered, but while sitting on another club’s bench did not
appeal, the new ownership, manager and righting some Elland Road wrongs did.
Asked if leaving was an option he looked at in the summer,
he told LeedsLive: “Of course. You have to put everything on the table and
think what can be good, what can be not good, but what was good was the
reorganisation of the club and the manager who came in.
“Just me, as a keeper, wanted to play as much as I can. It
wasn't good for me to leave and maybe be on the bench somewhere or not sure to
play.
“Leaving when the club is relegated is difficult, but I
didn't want to be selfish. Sometimes you have to be selfish, but it wasn’t
myself to do this.
“So it's just like, let's see you do one season, try
everything to be promoted and after you never know what can happen. I want to
do everything I can to help Leeds to promote again because our place is in the
Premier League.”
One season, everyone hopes, will be enough to return the
Whites to the top table of English football. Everything Daniel Farke has said
up to now would suggest Meslier remains as his first choice between the sticks
if they did get over the line next May.
Crucially, between now and then, the manager has a stopper
who knows what it takes to get over that line, even if the bulk of his
experience was behind closed doors. Meslier got his league debut for Leeds at
Hull City in February 2020 after Kiko Casilla’s eight-match ban for racist
language was confirmed.
The youngster would see them to the title with seven clean
sheets from 10 games. The leg-up Leeds gave Meslier, then 19 turning 20, is not
lost on him. Leaving after relegation and washing his hands off the mess he
helped create did not sit right with him in the close season.
A better hand, as Meslier calls it, equates to leaving on a
better note. Last season was a ‘difficult hand’ to say the least.
“This is the club where I started very seriously being
first[-choice] keeper and got the chance to play in the Premier League,” he
said. “Of course, it's unbelievable what Leeds did for me and that's why
leaving here would be a difficult hand of my journey with Leeds.
“I just want a better hand. A hand will arrive one day, but
I don't know when it will happen. I want a better hand than last season and if
I left last summer I would have regretted it for sure.”
The former France under-21 goalkeeper has started all 16 of
this season’s league games and Farke has shown nothing but 100 per cent backing
since the first pre-season friendly. The German has been glowing in his praise,
but there was no need for a grand sit-down to thrash out Meslier’s future, the
goalkeeper feels.
“We didn't need to speak a lot, we just needed to speak on
the pitch and it was my feeling on the pitch,” he said. “I feel directly
concerned with the team and I feel directly I will have a huge role, an
important role, inside the team.
“For me, it was easy to like it, the method of Daniel, how
we wanted to play. Since the first week he came in, I knew I would enjoy a lot
under his commandment.”