The game was in Illan Meslier’s hands.
Catch the ball, hold it and Leeds United would have come out of the week with seven points amid an injury crisis. It was, until the moment of Meslier’s mishap, an excellent Leeds performance. They were in their groove in attack and, despite conceding first, looked on course for a statement win against the Championship leaders.
Daniel Farke’s decision to drop Mateo Joseph and play Joel Piroe was justified with a well-taken goal and a battling No 9 performance. Despite the fears caused by the long-term injury absences of Ethan Ampadu and Ilia Gruev in the past week, Ao Tanaka and Joe Rothwell played their parts in defensive midfield roles well. Willy Gnonto put in one of the performances of the season and Junior Firpo scored a standout goal.
It all came down to Meslier. No mistake is more costly than a goalkeeper’s. Finding excuses in the 24-year-old Frenchman’s defence is hard. He has played enough games — 183 for Leeds United over five years in English football — to be able to handle those moments. His team-mates could and should have taken more of the chances they created to put daylight between the two teams. But Meslier’s mistake in allowing the ball to skip past him and into the net is the defining moment of the 2-2 draw with Sunderland.
Did a touch off Firpo’s head, with the goal ultimately awarded to the defender, skew the flight of the ball? Or was it the bounce off the turf?
Leeds looked to have beaten the Championship leaders before Meslier’s error (Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images)
No amount of rewatching will definitively answer either question, although at pitch level the consensus from those closest to it is that the ball hit a divot. The official record and rear-view camera angle show the ball clip off Firpo before the fateful bounce which caused the ball to skip up off the turf. Either way, it looked like it should have been an easy collection for Meslier. Uniquely for this type of goalkeeping error, the ball did not go straight between his arms and legs.
Instead, it bounced through the gap under his right elbow, making the lapse of concentration or his miscalculation of the ball look even more damning.
“WHAT HAS HE DONE?!” 🤯
A mistake from Meslier GIFTS Sunderland the equaliser! 🎁 pic.twitter.com/NSAQbTo3km
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) October 4, 2024
Sunderland manager and Meslier’s old boss at Lorient discussed the flight of the ball at full-time while consoling the goalkeeper, who was also comforted by several team-mates.
“I’m disappointed for him, I like him as a boy and a goalkeeper,” Le Bris said. “Everyone on the pitch can make a mistake but for the goalkeeper and the striker, when you make a big mistake the consequences are great. This happened today.
“It’s difficult when you have made that kind of mistake, we just spoke about the reaction. He said the ball changed direction when it touched the ground and he was surprised.”
The real question for any goalkeeper, particularly one with mistakes on his record as Meslier has in a Leeds shirt, is how they rebuild from this. He already divides opinion on whether he is good enough to be United’s starting goalkeeper. The mysterious affair at Sunderland will not have helped that.
“I have no explanation if I am honest,” Farke said. “In 30 years in professional football and believe me I have won and lost points in the last seconds, lucky and unlucky, something like this I have not experienced (…) To lose two points, we have not lost the game, but to lose the points in this way is heartbreaking. It’s horrendous and so sad for our lads. I feel for my lads because up until this moment they did everything right in difficult circumstances. We had a really difficult week in terms of the third game in six days and the awful long-term injury of key players.”
Farke knows his job: to restore the confidence of a side and a player cut down by last-second disappointment. The German has always been a staunch defender of his players when they come under pressure and Meslier is no different. It would be against his usual way to drop Meslier for the error alone, although Karl Darlow presents strong competition.
The international break means Meslier will have an extended period to think about the mistake, which could be a welcome moment away from the spotlight or a dangerous period of dwelling. The pressures of being a Leeds goalkeeper in a team expected to win promotion are unique.
Leeds appeared to have won the game before Meslier’s error (Lewis Storey/Getty Images)
“Pascal Struijk came over and said, ‘Listen boss, I’ve never seen something like this’,” Farke said. “The ball bounced and jumped in the other direction. From the pitch, there was a mark and the ball bumped in a different direction. I cannot tell you if that was the case because I wasn’t on the pitch and I haven’t watched the footage. But Pascal is in the best position to see this. If it was like that, it’s unbelievably unlucky and I would struggle to find an explanation of how this ball could go in. You don’t have to talk to Illan, he is the most upset player in the dressing room. He is more or less in tears so you just give him a hug and leave him alone. He doesn’t need to hear anything, we can speak about this in a few days.
“My feeling after such an equaliser is that we’ve done everything right so you just want to go and not speak to them (the players). But they need leadership, I can’t leave them alone because I’m hurting myself. I have to be there and give a hug to Illan in the dressing room, to give the first messages that they judge the game in the right way. They are young boys and I can’t send them away, some of them for two weeks, without talking about this. I used encouraging words. Football is the same as in life, that right now the feeling is that everything that can go against you is there. And when you think you have reached a turning point, there’s another sucker punch. But you have to keep going, not lose your trust, your belief and your good heart.”
Struijk told LUTV: “Of course he is disappointed, he knows that these things happen in football, unfortunately. I’ve looked at the pitch there, there is a massive dent there and I have a better chance of winning the lottery than it goes in a hole and then bounces to his right but we all know what a great keeper Illan is.
“He will save us, for sure, a couple of games in he will make outstanding saves. It’s a reason now to be a little bit disappointed but throughout the season he will make plenty of saves.”
Before Leeds’ three games in the past six days, pressure was building for Farke. Five points and a marked improvement in performance have relieved that somewhat, although a large portion of that scrutiny has transferred to Meslier. It will take Farke doing what he does best — building a calm centre in the middle of a Leeds storm — to shelter his player and help him get back to his best.
(Top photo: Getty Images)
