LOTUS ILLAN
Rookie stopper Meslier can keep Leeds on road to Prem
HULL CITY 0
LEEDS UNITED 4
Ayling 5, Hernandez 47, Roberts 81, 84
OPPONENTS may see Illan Meslier as Leeds’ weak link, but Grant McCann believes he has already proved his strength.
Meslier, 20 today, belied his lack of senior experience with an assured and confident display on his Championship debut for Leeds.
The French keeper, signed on loan from Ligue 2 side Lorient, is deputising for Kiko Casilla during his eight-game ban for racially abusing Charlton’s Jonathan Leko and Hull boss McCann was impressed.
“He’s a very good goalkeeper,” he said. “There were a couple of times when the ball went into the box and he was very confident and caught it.
“He’s good, that’s why he’s there. We were aware they had a young keeper and it’s easy to say put some balls on top of him, but the game doesn’t always go the way you think it will.”
Leeds believe in Meslier and did not sign an experienced goalkeeper in January because they were confident he could replace Casilla.
He is reminiscent of Paul Robinson, who also made his debut at 19, and Leeds fans were calling for the youth international to replace Casilla even before the Spaniard was suspended.
At 6ft 6in, Meslier personifies the modern keeper and is as comfortable kicking the ball as he is handling it.
Tyler Roberts (left) says the players are confident in him after just two appearances for Leeds.
“We all knew as soon as he came in that he was a great keeper,” said the striker. “He tried what the manager wanted him to try and didn’t back out of things.
“He was confident and commanding and it’s good for the defenders to have him behind them.”
Roberts scored twice as Leeds finally displayed the clinical edge Marcelo Bielsa has been calling for to register their biggest away win since November 2011 to close the gap on leaders West Brom to a point.
Luke Ayling and Pablo Hernandez also scored and Leeds have reeled off four straight wins without conceding to get their promotion bid back on track.
“Scoring four shows how sharp we are,” added Roberts. “But we’re not going to get ahead of ourselves. We know what happened last season and we’ve learnt from that.”
Hull are feeling the loss of Jarrod Bowen and Kamil Grosicki in January and have been sucked into the relegation fight, taking just two points from their last 10 league games.
They also had 10 players injured on Saturday, but McCann will not tolerate any moping. “I’ve no time for people feeling sorry for themselves,” he added. “If anyone feels like that, they can go home or play for the Under-23s.” HULL:
Long 8, McKenzie 6, Pennington 6, McLoughlin 6, Elder 5, Honeyman 6, Stewart 6, Da Silva Lopes 5 (Batty 63, 6), Wilks 5, Magennis 6 (Balogh 63, 7), Samuelsen 6 (Maddison 76, 5)
LEEDS: Meslier 7, Ayling 7, White 7, Cooper 7, Dallas 7, Phillips 7, Costa 7, Klich 8, Hernandez 9 (Shackleton 87), Harrison 8 (Alioski 87), Bamford 7 (Roberts 66, 8)