'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.”

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