MOT Tactics: Who should be Marcelo Bielsa’s number one for Leeds in 20/21?
For the vast majority of his time with Leeds United, Kiko Casilla has been Marcelo Bielsa’s number one between the sticks.
After being handed an eight-game ban in February for racially abusing Charlton Athletic forward Jonathan Leko, however, he has seen his place taken by loanee Frenchman Illan Meslier.
The youngster has yet to put a foot wrong for the Whites, and with the Mirror suggesting that the club are intent on making his temporary stint in England permanent if they gain promotion this season, it begs the question as to who Bielsa’s first choice should be if and when we return to the top flight?
He may have only played three matches this term, but the stats make for pretty impressive reading for Meslier.
As per Wyscout, 2.19 saves per game with a reflex rate of 57.1%.
By contrast, Casilla has made 2.14 per game reflex rate of just 39.1%.
Similarly, Meslier leads his more experienced teammate 17.6% in terms of his long pass execution, and has conceded just 0.31 goals per 90 minutes from an xG of 0.76.
Again, as a point of comparison, Casilla has conceded 0.88 from an xG of 0.85.
And a closer look at his performance on his debut against Arsenal is a fine illustration of how well Meslier could cope at the highest level.
For starters, his pass completion rate in that game was 100%.
Above is a map of his 18 short passes, all of which found their man with minimum fuss or danger.
But the real beauty if Meslier’s kicking came in his more ambitious pieces of distribution.
As shown above, he played nine long balls, predominantly out to the right hand side, and didn’t misplace a single one.
Despite playing 34 matches more, Casilla has only completed nine or more long passes in a single game on two occasions this season.
Of the three saves Meslier made against the Gunners, two of them required reflexes.
And if we look at the placement of those shots, as pictured above, we can see that they’re not easy efforts to stop either.
Low and close to the corner, they called for great amount of agility and skill to pull off.
Even the goal he did concede, as pictured above, was from point blank range, and had an individual xG rating of 0.87.
Essentially, the striker should be scoring a chance likes that 87 times out of 100, and when the shot is from just six yards out, it’s hard to lay too much blame at Meslier’s door.
Since making his bow back in January, we’ve seen nothing to suggest that he can’t maintain that level of output consistently either.
His last two outings have yielded clean sheets, and until he gives us a reason not to, we believe that the Elland Road faithful should put our faith in him.
If that means that he starts as Bielsa’s number one on the first day of next season too, so be it.
In other Leeds United news, Ian Poveda issues Twitter verdict on Leeds title hopes ahead of Ch’ship restart.