Leeds United head into the international break with a sour taste in the mouth after a disappointing 2-2 draw away at Sunderland on Friday night.
The Whites appeared to be headed towards a brilliant 2-1 win at the Stadium of Light before an inexplicable error from Illan Meslier in the 97th minute handed the hosts a point.
Daniel Farke’s side had gone 1-0 down in the game during the first half after some sloppy defending allowed Chris Rigg to tap the ball into an empty net from close range.
However, the West Yorkshire outfit rallied brilliantly and found their equaliser through Joel Piroe, who superbly headed in a wonderful cross from Wilfried Gnonto on the flank.
Junior Firpo and Gnonto then linked up in the second half for the former to arrow a left-footed shot into the far bottom corner to put Leeds in front on Wearside.
Their fantastic work to get the game to 2-1 was then undone, though, deep into stoppage time as Meslier allowed a ball to bounce in front of him and then had to watch on as it spun away from his arm and into the back of the net.
It was another mistake from the French goalkeeper during his career at Elland Road, which has not gone from strength to strength as some may have hoped.
Illan Meslier's career with Leeds
In the summer of 2020, after the club’s promotion to the Premier League under Marcelo Bielsa, Victor Orta splashed out a fee of £5m to sign the shot-stopper on a permanent deal from Lorient.
That came after he had kept an eye-catching seven clean sheets in ten matches in the Championship during his initial loan spell, to help the side to the title.
In those ten games, Meslier conceded four goals from a post-shot xG faced of 4.8 and this means that he prevented 0.8 more goals than the average goalkeeper would have been expected to from the quality of shots against his goal.
Unfortunately, the young Frenchman has failed to kick on since that impressive early loan spell and has underperformed as a shot-stopper in all five of his full seasons as the number one at Elland Road.
The 24-year-old did help Leeds to finish inside the top ten in their first season in the Premier League under Bielsa in the 2020/21 campaign and conceded 3.4 more than expected, which is not a dreadful underperformance given it was in the top-flight.
However, the left-footed dud went on to concede 146 goals in the next two seasons in the division, the latter of which ended in relegation for the Whites.
20/21 Premier League
46.6
52
-3.4
21/22 Premier League
61.8
79
-16.2
22/23 Premier League
53.6
67
-12.4
23/24 Championship
34.9
40
-3.1
24/25 Championship
5.1
7
-0.9
As you can see in the table above, Meslier conceded a whopping 28.6 more goals than expected across those two campaigns, which illustrates just how poorly he performed.
Things could have been so different for Leeds, though, if they had landed one of their other goalkeeping targets in the summer of 2020 – Emiliano Martinez.
Leeds United's interest in Emi Martinez
The Whites had just been promoted from the Championship, winning the title, and were looking at additions to bolster their squad for the upcoming season.
One that got away
The transfers that nearly happened but never did. This article is part of Football FanCast's One That Got Away series.
In July of 2020, The Athletic’s Phil Hay replied to a supporter asking about interest in Manchester United’s Sergio Romero and revealed that the club were interested in Arsenal goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez, likening the two of them as similar fits.
At the time, both players were back-ups at their respective clubs. Although, the Argentine colossus had played nine games in the Premier League during the 2019/20 campaign after an injury to number one Bernd Leno.
Martinez remained at Arsenal in July and August before Aston Villa swooped in to secure his services for a reported fee of £17m in September.
This meant that the Gunners giant was available for a transfer and attainable for Leeds had they decided to seriously pursue his services back in July, when Hay confirmed that the club were looking at him.
Ultimately, the West Yorkshire outfit ended that summer transfer window with Meslier as their permanent goalkeeper signing, and Martinez has gone from strength to strength in the midlands.
Emi Martinez's current market value
At the time of writing (06/10/2024), Transfermarkt has his current market value at €28m (£23.3m) and this shows that his value has soared during his time with Villa.
He has played 167 matches for the Villans in all competitions since his £17m move to the club in 2020, and kept 56 clean sheets in that time.
Martinez, who was hailed as “amazing” by Harry Kane after a 1-0 win for Villa over Bayern Munich in the Champions League this month, has been an impressive shot-stopper for the majority of his career with Villa so far.
20/21 Premier League
49.2
46
+4.2
21/22 Premier League
42.1
48
-3.9
22/23 Premier League
36.6
38
+2.6
23/24 Premier League
50.8
48
+6.8
As you can see in the table above, the former Arsenal titan has conceded fewer goals than expected, based on the post-shot xG of the efforts on his goal, in the Premier League to date – whereas Meslier conceded far, far, more than expected in his three seasons in the top-flight.
Martinez has also caught the eye on the international stage for Argentina, winning the World Cup once and the Copa America twice, and his exploits for his country helped him to win the The Best FIFA Men’s Goalkeeper of the Year in 2022.
His performances were so good at the World Cup in 2022 that the great Lionel Messi, as you can see in the post above, lauded him as “the best” goalkeeper in the world.
This means that Leeds missed out on signing a player who went on to become the world’s greatest goalkeeper and a World Cup winner, and got Meslier instead.
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