What should Leeds do with Illan Meslier?

National World - LocalTV

Daniel Wales and Lee Sobot discuss Leeds’ goalkeeper situation.

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00:00he's not covered himself in any sort of glory. I mean, the most obvious one of course is

00:07when obviously he tries to, well, what seemingly is trying to catch the ball. I'm not entirely

00:11sure what he's trying to do, to be honest, but obviously he then palms back into it,

00:16right into the six yard box. And it's just a tap in. Yeah. It's quite laughable really.

00:21Cause you just think, well, as a keeper in that situation, why would you even attempt

00:25that? If the ball's going there, just, just leave it, let it go over the bar. Or if you're

00:30that unsure, just push it over the bar. Why push it back into play? Like, to me, it just

00:36doesn't make any sort of logical sense. And you think that a goalkeeper of his experience,

00:39I know he still is a young lad, but yeah. He's played enough games for leads. It's fair

00:43to say in terms of to be experienced enough. So yeah. What's he doing? I don't know. And

00:50that's the thing, like, you know, on the way back, I mean, obviously social media was right

00:53for it, obviously all the clips of it and you're dead, right? One of the main points

00:57people were asking me was what actually, for the second goal, what actually is he trying

01:00to do? And I can only assume that he's trying to sort of like, stop it from going over the

01:05bar, but also catch and collect it, you know? And he's maybe just been deceived a little

01:08bit by how high it was or whatever, or sort of like, you know, the sort of direction of

01:11the ball or something like that, because obviously if you're going to palm it back into the area

01:15and there's a good chance that someone's going to score, which is exactly what happened.

01:18I mean, he was right to, you know, his absolute gift, late Christmas present for Pedro, wasn't

01:21it? He wasn't going to miss that and stuff. So yeah, I don't know what he was doing with

01:24that one. You know, I can sort of get the first one a little bit because obviously he's

01:28come charging out his area in a bid to clear it. But obviously, if you're not going to

01:31get there, you're going to leave yourself in trouble. And then, as I say, the third

01:33one was just like Leeds at corners. And I think there's a stat about Leeds conceding

01:38goals at set pieces at the moment, one of the worst in the country, in the NFL for conceding

01:43at set pieces, which is not a surprise because, you know, like every time a set piece opposition

01:48comes at the moment, you sort of fear danger a little bit, whether it's that or cross

01:51it into the box. And Mellier's not helping that situation because he doesn't appear particularly

01:56commanding at crosses and stuff, is he? So I don't know, really. The jury's very, very

02:00much out, obviously, 100%. I almost feel with him sometimes, it's like almost like the more,

02:05it seems like the more straightforward stuff is what sometimes he struggles with, you know,

02:08like obviously, you know, that was, you know, that was a fairly routine piece of goalkeeping

02:13you'd think and stuff. And then obviously the situation at Sunderland, you know, we'd

02:17never know what happened if it hit a divot or whatever and stuff. Obviously, you know,

02:20like it mean it didn't look good, did it? And stuff. But then there are times in games

02:23when Mellier does pull off good saves, you know, to shots like that are bound for the

02:27top corner or stuff. And he is, he is good at that and stuff in terms of like saving,

02:30you know, as I say, like arrow shots that are like sometimes towards the corner. It

02:34seems like it's almost like the more, the more routine stuff sometimes that he seems

02:37to struggle with. Obviously, you've had the penalty this season, which was right next

02:40to him, which he didn't save and stuff. You have the goal at Preston away again, which

02:44was bundled on from close range that he couldn't keep out. So there's, you know, I mean, there

02:47were clips obviously of his goalkeeping errors, if you like, this season during the rounds

02:53on Saturday evening. And there were quite a few. And, you know, it's getting a bit impossible

02:57to ignore.

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