Earlier on Tuesday, we covered an article from Ouest-France explaining that Illan Meslier, now that Leeds United have been promoted back to the Premier League, will be signing for the club permanently.
Loaned by Lorient for the season, the goalkeeper proved a more than adequate replacement for Kiko Casilla during the Spaniard’s ban, so much so that Bielsa kept him between the sticks even after his first choice was able to picked once more.
The local newspaper said Meslier would be putting pen to paper ‘at the end of the week’, which the player has now confirmed would be Thursday for a three-year contract.
Following their article, Ouest-France managed to have a chat with the young shot stopper about his season at Elland Road and got his first impressions following their recent achievement and subsequent partying.
He said: “It’s great to live this promotion to the Premier League with Leeds. The club have been waiting for this for 16 years, it’s been an eternity. We played Barnsley Thursday and we went to Elland Road on Friday, with the team, to watch Hudderfield play West Brom. Since West Brom lost, we were certain to finish in the top two.
“The fans started coming to the stadium to celebrate. We sang, the fans were screaming, letting off fireworks, it was a great gathering. They were nearly 4000 at the entrance of the stadium. Saturday, Stoke beat Brentford, which meant we were champions”.
Meslier was then asked the obvious question of what it was like to work under the orders of Marcelo Bielsa for an entire season.
He replied: “Honestly. He’s very professional, he’s great. People are very complimentary with him, he imposes his style. All the players adhered to his way of doing this, we gave him all our trust. He knows how to improve players, it’s very professional. He manages every detail, it’s crazy! Every percentage, every detail is important. It’s what allowed us to go up this season.
“It’s always videos… The morning before training, the day of the game, you watch at least two videos of the opponent, of us. It’s something that helps a lot, it’s really good”.
The young goalkeeper was also full of praise for Marcos Abad, the goalkeeping coach at Elland Road, who helped him a lot improve playing with his feet, which is a staple of the Bielsa style of football.
As for who really was there for him within the squad, Meslier picked three of his teammates: “Pablo Hernández. It’s so much easier when he plays. Ben White, loaned by Brighton, who was in defence and Kalvin Phillips. He’s so good with his passing and set pieces. The last two have a great future, Pablo is a bit older. I really leaned on them this season, they’re guys you can speak with”.
With promotion under their belt, the player can now look forward to some well earned holidays (he’s going back to Brittany for two weeks) as well as a bit more money, since Ouest-France point out he will be tripling his wages when he signs on the dotted line at Elland Road.
He added: “Now, I’m thinking about football. Money will come later. It’s [his agent] who deals with that. We’ve worked together for three years, he’s really important in my career and a major element of my entourage. He wishes what’s best for me and we managed to make the right choices, even when it wasn’t easy, but when you see the results with the promotion, it’s nearly a dream come true.
“Great players will come to Leeds to play in the Premier League, world stars. I hope to live great things with this club. First, we’ll try and stay up, but here we’d like to relive the great era of Leeds, and all those epics that stayed in the memory”.
