Solving Leeds’ goalkeeper conundrum could be key to Championship success

Daniel Wales and Lee Sobot discuss Leeds United’s goalkeeper situation.

Transcript

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 right

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

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

00:27if the ball's going there, just, just leave it, let it go over the bar. Or if you're that

00:30unsure, just push it over the bar. Why push it back into play? Like to me, it just doesn't

00:36make any sort of logical sense. And you think that a goalkeeper of his experience, I know

00:40he still is a young lad, but yeah. He's made enough games for leads. It's fair to say in

00:44terms of to be experienced enough. So yeah. What's he doing? I don't know. And that's

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

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

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

01:00do? 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 and a bit to clear it. But obviously, you know, if you're not

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

01:33third one was just like Leeds at corners. And I think there's a stat that, you know,

01:37about Leeds conceding goals at set pieces at the moment, one of the worst in the country

01:42in the NFL for conceding at set pieces, which is not a surprise because, you know, like

01:46every time a set piece opposition comes at the moment, you sort of fear danger a little

01:50bit, whether it's that or crosses into the box. And Mellier's not helping that situation.

01:54Of course, we are in January now, and we do have the chance to bring in some reinforcements

02:00should they have the funds to do so. You mentioned Mellier already once today. Is a new keeper

02:06needed, do you think? Well, they definitely need to do something

02:10with the goalkeeper situation, yeah, because Mellier's confidence cannot be high at all,

02:14can it? I mean, it must be very, very low at the moment after that. You know, what he

02:17would say is he did respond well to the error at Sunderland, you know what I mean? So like

02:21he did bounce back well from that, and I wouldn't put it past him to do that again and to bounce

02:24back well. I wouldn't put it past Daniel Farker to keep the faith of him and keep him in.

02:28But obviously, the thing is, it's coming at a time when they've got an FA Cup game around

02:31the corner, where basically, almost certainly would have come out the team anyway. So what

02:35this does do now is offers obviously an absolutely huge chance to Kyle Darlow, who is obviously

02:39a very, very experienced keeper, obviously playing for Wales, obviously knows, you know,

02:43the big leads have got Wales players in the team, Roden, Dan James, et cetera, Ampadu.

02:49So, you know, like it just all sort of like, it all works and all fits really, and it's

02:53just a perfect chance really for Darlow to come in.