BBC Sport pundit Noel Whelan has demanded that Kiko Casilla removes the errors from his game, as the Leeds United ‘keeper is leaving his teammates “fearful”.
Casilla produced yet another error during our defeat to Nottingham Forest at the weekend, forcing boss Marcelo Bielsa to defend the one-time Spain international after he was beaten at his near post by Sammy Ameobi to open the scoring.
Forest had been wasteful with their chances at the weekend only to be aided by Casilla, who was often wasteful with his distribution to needlessly squander possession when he would claim the ball.
One instance even saw Casilla throw the ball straight out to Ben Watson, only to be let off when the Forest skipper failed to capitalise on his chance to deal further damage to our promotion hopes.
Whelan is adamant that Casilla must iron out these issues in his game, as you would not expect to see them in the junior tiers, let alone the second-highest level of professional English football.
“He’s an accident waiting to happen at the moment,” Whelan told Football Insider. “His body language is terrible and you can see the defence are losing confidence in him, they’re fearful and thinking: ‘Can we trust him anymore?’
Will Bielsa ever drop Casilla on form?
Yes
No
“There have been too many soft goals, big errors, going back to the Cardiff game in December. They’re schoolboy errors, you shouldn’t be expecting that from a Real Madrid number two over his career.
“I know everyone’s prone to mistakes, but these are really bad mistakes and ones you wouldn’t expect to see at Under 23 levels at times.
“For the goalkeeper in a team chasing promotion into the Premier League, his decision-making and quality has got to be so much better.”
Casilla started the season with much promise by keeping four clean sheets in the opening seven games of the Championship campaign, and would have 12 shut outs to his name by December 10.
However, since denying Hull City in our 2-0 win, Casilla has failed to keep the opposition from scoring with 19 goals fired past him in our last ten league games.
If Casilla keeps up his current level of performances, it is surely only a matter of time before Bielsa has to think seriously hard about axing the £2.7m-rated 33-year-old and awarding Kamil Miazek his senior Leeds debut or award FC Lorient loanee Illan Meslier his maiden Championship outing.
In other Leeds United news, a big-spending top-flight side is keeping tabs on a 5 ft 10 Whites star ahead of a potential summer pursuit.