Now’s as good a time as any.
The U23 side’s heavy defeat to Derby County got me thinking last night. With some people questioning stopper Kamil Miazak during that defeat, it got me wondering about the current goalkeeping position at Leeds United.
More importantly the fallout that is likely to come if Kiko Casilla. News came out the other day that he has been given an extension to appeal his alleged racism against Charlton Athletic’s Jonathan Leko back in September.
I just think it would be best to get him out of the firing line as it were, rather than face the attention of being talked about constantly with rumours flying around him, just let him sit back and focus on the upcoming hearing rather than being distracted and having to focus on that and playing for Leeds at the same time.
Not that I want to see Casilla dropped necessarily, although I’ve had my doubts about him, I have to say that he has made a marked improvement on where he was at last year (all stats from FBref). He has halved the amount of goals he’s conceded in almost the same amount of appearances 18 goals in 17 last season to 9 goals in 16 this campaign, with part of that coming through an increased save percentage of 67% to now 80%.
I think it would be as good a chance as any for us for us to finally see 19-year-old Illan Meslier in action. It’s something that I have been calling on for some time, and this gives us the perfect chance to see what he can do and if he has a future at Elland Road. Let’s not forget that he is only with us on a one-year loan, so we’ve only got him for a limited time, we might as well get as much use out of him as we can.
Should Illan Meslier be given more game time?
Yes. It's now or never
No. Stay with what we've got
It seems like we have the perfect opportunity to really put two and two together here, and although I’d rather it come in better circumstances than this, we might not get a better opportunity to see him have a long spell in the team all season.