‘Ice in his veins’ – Many Leeds fans react to Meslier Championship debut v Hull
There was a huge amount of pressure on Illan Meslier as the 6ft 6 goalkeeper made his Championship debut for Leeds United.
We’ve seen him a lot in the Under-23s and he’s looked fabulous, with a penchant for saving penalties and seemingly a confident player with the ball at his feet.
He put in a brilliant performance in the FA Cup against Arsenal, when he pinged the ball about superbly with or without pressure on him.
Understandably, he looked a bit nervous today in the game against Hull and he kicked the ball out of play on a few occasions early on.
However, he settled into the game really quickly and looked much more assured later in the first half. Just as well as the rest of the Leeds team were playing peculiarly badly.
Another thing is that Hull didn’t actually test Meslier aside from putting pressure on him with the ball at his feet. He didn’t have one save to make in the first half.
https://twitter.com/LufcTJ/status/1233750014897332224
The pattern stayed the same in the second half and while his distribution was still questionable, he snuffed out one potential threat from Hull when he came smartly off his line.
Hull hit the post with their best chance of the game and Meslier couldn’t have done anything about that had it been a few inches to the left.
https://twitter.com/alibud87/status/1233751392394850305
The main thing for Meslier is getting 90 minutes under his belt and keeping a clean sheet, although he’ll be forced to make a save at some point in the future.
That’s huge and as a couple of fans pointed out, he looked calm and composed with one saying he had “ice in his veins”.
Overall, it was a very satisfactory league debut for the youngster.
In other Leeds United news, ‘Zero class’, ‘Pathetic’ – These Leeds fans fume at official Hull tweet following Casilla ban