Entire football seasons can turn on split seconds of action. Leeds United know from bitter experience that play-off games can turn on split seconds too.
There they were last Thursday, in the second leg of their Championship semi-final against Norwich City, with nasty shades of 2019: the same stadium, the same end of the ground, the same aggregate lead and not far off the same position on the pitch where it went up in flames at home to Derby County five years earlier.
Josh Sargent clean through, he and Illan Meslier one-on-one, Leeds 2-0 up and Norwich with their first glimpse of any hope at Elland Road. Two-nil is security; 2-1 is all bets off. A single Derby goal, don’t forget, was all it took to send 2019’s promotion chance into the meat grinder.
On Thursday, Meslier won out. Having barely seen the ball for half an hour, he rushed off his line, spread his huge frame, stuck his right arm into the air and beat away Sargent’s attempt to chip him. The tie was won in that duel, and Norwich did not come again.
From any vantage point, Meslier’s save was a gem. But how did the blur of Sargent’s attack feel to him? What did he see and how did he execute his technique perfectly? Was any of it luck? Or was it pure goalkeeping excellence?
The time for Meslier to react to Norwich’s break was reduced by the fact that Ashley Barnes’ through ball to Sargent, played from close to the halfway line, was not guaranteed to land.
For an instant, it looked as if Ethan Ampadu was close enough to cut the ball out but Ampadu misjudged the trajectory of Barnes’ pass and let it bounce beyond his outstretched leg. Having not seen Norwich seriously threaten once, it was Meslier versus Sargent, the stadium holding its breath.
“When I saw (Sargent) arrive through Ethan (Ampadu), I knew he was one-v-one,” Meslier says. “I knew I should take out as much space as possible, to arrive as big as possible in front of him.
“At the last second, I saw that he was going to chip the ball over my head. I tried to react as quickly as possible with my hand over my head. I’m very happy because this type of save is hard. Usually, the keeper goes for a shot across them so if the player chips, you don’t have time to react. It was important — especially at that moment of the game.”
In the immediate aftermath, it was fair to wonder if Meslier had gambled by second-guessing Sargent’s chip rather than actually spotting it first. Meslier says his was a deliberate reaction, and one he was able to make through the merest of glances at Sargent’s body language.
“It’s a situation I’ve faced in training,” he says. “I could see from the body and the face of the striker that he was going to chip, and then I react as quickly as possible.
“That comes with experience, like training with different types of finishing. Sometimes instead of chipping, some players will go around you so I’m also prepared for them to try to dribble past me, and for me not to make a foul.”
Would he have studied Sargent’s style or tells in his game before kick-off?
“Yes, of course,” Meslier says. “I have meetings and videos with Ed (Wootten) the goalkeeping coach. He showed me the players I could face in the second (leg). But you’re never prepared for everything.”
David Wagner, the former Norwich manager who was sacked less than 24 hours after his side’s 4-0 hammering at Elland Road, referenced Sargent’s chance in his post-match press conference.
A reprieve was there for them, he said. And then, owing to Meslier’s reflexes, it was gone. Leeds did not look back. Sunday’s play-off final awaits.
Meslier is highly experienced for a goalkeeper aged 24. He has been Leeds’ first choice for four seasons straight and amassed more than 150 appearances. In that time, and despite ebbs and flows with his form, there has been no sustained challenge to his position as No 1.
Meslier greets fans ahead of playing against Southampton earlier this month (Ed Sykes/Getty Images)
The exception came at the end of last season when he was dropped for United’s last four games.
Meslier had not enjoyed a good year personally but Leeds as a whole had underperformed badly and were on their way to relegation from the Premier League. In May, the club appointed Sam Allardyce in a desperate attempt to dodge the drop. Allardyce was their third permanent manager of the campaign, following on from Jesse Marsch and Javi Gracia.
Allardyce’s first move was to bomb Meslier out of Leeds’ starting line-up, replacing him with then 32-year-old Spaniard Joel Robles. The punt was to no avail. Leeds took one point from their final four fixtures, conceded 11 times and finished 19th in the table.
Did Meslier think Allardyce’s decision to drop him was unfair?
“In the moment, I would have said it was unjust,” Meslier says. “It’s never easy to deal with this situation.
“But with a step back, a couple of months and now almost one year later, I was very exposed in this period. I think I wanted to help more than I should, you know? When you’re in that type of situation, you want to help as much as you can. Sometimes you have to understand that you can’t do more than your position allows.
“I’ll say that my confidence went down a little bit, but I can’t answer to say if it was fair or if it wasn’t. It’s the decision of the manager. If it was with Javi (Gracia), I could understand it. With Sam, I have no comment on this guy.”
Big things were expected of Meslier when he broke into Leeds’ first team in 2020, then only 20. Chelsea had tried to sign him previously. Tottenham Hotspur took a close look at him. In his best spells, he was touted as a future No 1 for France’s national team.
At points over the past few years, though, it felt as if his development was plateauing. But is that not natural for a keeper who broke through so young? Was Meslier’s rise likely to slow at some stage, if only temporarily?
“It’s always like this when a young keeper starts,” he says. “Take whoever, it doesn’t matter. If he’s English, they will say he deserves to be in the England team. If he’s Spanish, the same. Because he’s young, you expect him to be one of the best in a couple of years.
“But it’s not like this. It comes with experience and games played, the situations you face which happen again. When you decide to go with a young goalkeeper, OK, he has delivered. But to learn and to teach everything, every trick of the position, he’ll make mistakes. In these moments, you become better.
“It’s difficult to understand on the outside. People see the 90 minutes and they want to win. But it’s a long process, years of process. I make mistakes but the most important thing is to know why you make them. Unfortunately, it’s the best way to learn.”
Meslier has been Leeds No 1 since 2020, making 174 appearances for the club (Alex Burstow/Getty Images)
Daniel Farke, Leeds’ manager, invested in Meslier fully last summer. Though the club spent £400,000 ($434,000) signing Karl Darlow from Newcastle United, Meslier began this season in the starting line-up and, fitness permitting, will finish it in the starting line-up for Sunday’s play-off final against Southampton.
On the day Meslier speaks to The Athletic, he’s about to get down to the business of preparing for penalties. He did his homework in case the semi-final against Norwich went to a shoot-out and he likes to take the belt-and-braces approach: knowledge memorised but also written down, potentially on a sheet of paper attached to a water bottle.
“To be honest, I do both,” he says. “It’s important to have both so you’re not distracted by just your sheet or your bottle. You can miss information when the player is coming to take the penalty.
“We haven’t started it yet. Norwich, I was prepared for them. But tomorrow and during the week, I’ll have my work here and at home, to analyse everything.”
For that split-second moment which could settle everything.
GO DEEPER
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(Top photo: Meslier making the save against Norwich; by Michael Regan via Getty Images)
