MOT View: Meslier will have to wait for big Leeds chance after Phil Hay Twitter update
There are plenty of Leeds United fans who want to see Illan Meslier take the gloves for the Championship game against Middlesbrough on Wednesday night.
However, we are 99% sure it’s not going to happen.
Casilla was facing a double threat to his starting place. The first is the FA hearing over an incident that took place way back in September.
That it’s taken so long to be heard is ludicrous in itself. But it looks like it could go on a lot longer.
Casilla is facing a minimum six-game ban if he is found guilty but as Athletic journalist Phil Hay has pointed out, Casilla is free to appeal if the verdict goes against him.
Irrespective, we can’t see the FA dropping the outcome on a matchday.
There are plenty of parallels with the Fernando Forestieri case. Both players strenuously denied their guilt. Forestieri actually proved this in a court of law but was still found guilty by the FA.
He appealed when the outcome of the case was delivered at the end of July last year and it took just over a month for this to be rejected by the FA.
Given the serious nature of the case and Casilla’s insistence that he is innocent, we are assuming that he will appeal.
That could give him at least another four-to-five weeks where he’s available for selection.
Given that Casilla is on the back of two clean sheets we think the longer he holds onto the gloves the better for Leeds.
Meslier might well be as good as he was against Arsenal every game. But there’s a chance he won’t be and with Casilla out Leeds have no other options. That’s not good coming into a promotion run-in for obvious reasons.
Casilla is nursing a hand injury that he picked up in the 1-0 win against Reading but Bielsa said he was “hopeful” that he would be able to play at the Riverside tonight.
And our exclusive columnist and former Leeds & England goalkeeper Paul Robinson thinks that Casilla will be fine to play through the pain. He said injuries like this were “part and parcel of the job”.
Casilla hasn’t broken any fingers and Robinson claimed even if he had, they could strap his fingers up and give him an injection.
Given all of this, it looks like Meslier is going to have to wait a while yet for his first league start.
In other Leeds United news, Leeds ace ‘can’t believe’ what has happened to him after being bombed out on loan