{"id":559356,"date":"2020-07-23T13:17:41","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T17:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=559356"},"modified":"2020-08-21T12:07:31","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T16:07:31","slug":"illan-meslier-leeds-united-goalkeeper-completes-permanent-elland-road-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/07\/23\/illan-meslier-leeds-united-goalkeeper-completes-permanent-elland-road-move\/","title":{"rendered":"Illan Meslier: Leeds United Goalkeeper Completes Permanent Elland Road Move"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/tag\/leeds-united\/\" target=\"_self\">Leeds United<\/a> have completed the signing of Illan Meslier. The goalkeeper joins on a permanent deal from FC Lorient.<\/p>\n<h2>Illan Meslier Completes Permanent Move to Leeds United<\/h2>\n<h3>Whites Sign French Goalkeeper<\/h3>\n<p>Illan Meslier has completed a permanent transfer from FC Lorient to Leeds United.<\/p>\n<p>The 20-year-old shot-stopper joined the Whites on a season-long loan last summer; however, his loan deal has been turned permanent.<\/p>\n<p>Meslier made just eleven appearances for the Yorkshire side in all competitions but was a key player in Leeds&#8217; promotion to the <a href=\"\/category\/premier-league\/\" target=\"_self\">Premier League<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>After making his Leeds debut against <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/arsenal\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Arsenal<\/a> in the FA Cup, his league debut came at Hull City in February.<\/p>\n<p>During his ten <a href=\"\/category\/league-football\/championship\/\" target=\"_self\">Championship<\/a> appearances, Meslier kept an impressive seven clean sheets for Bielsa&#8217;s side.<\/p>\n<p>Meslier progressed through FC Lorient youth ranks and has been capped by France at Under-18, Under-19 and Under-20 level.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to LUTV, Meslier spoke of his intention to remain at Elland Road.<\/p>\n<p>He said: &#8220;It&#8217;s unbelievable, we are in the Premier League and today I&#8217;ve signed for Leeds United permanently, so I&#8217;m very happy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a dream come true because next season we are in the Premier League.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My objective when I arrived was to stay here, Leeds is perfect, the supporters, club and stadium, along with the team is unbelievable. So I always wanted to stay.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I first came into the team it was difficult because we needed to win every game and we were playing for first place, and of course this is a pressure.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But after this, with my teammates, it is very easy to play with them and I&#8217;m happy for the moments we have had.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For a goalkeeper I am young, but it is not a problem if you are at the required level, so it is okay.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I hope to play a lot next season too, I always train at 100 per cent, I want to start next season and I hope we can play lots of big games here at Elland Road.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"VsoreAmjR3xZHc326G_WBw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1199588636\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'VsoreAmjR3xZHc326G_WBw',sig:'QaVZ1bA4frAPw-IdjLXsv6414bnlzVsC1Xd30tBvlQo=',w:'594px',h:'395px',items:'1199588636',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leeds United have completed the signing of Illan Meslier. The goalkeeper joins on a permanent deal from FC Lorient. Illan Meslier Completes Permanent Move to Leeds United Whites Sign French Goalkeeper Illan Meslier has completed a permanent transfer from FC Lorient to Leeds United. The 20-year-old shot-stopper joined the Whites on a season-long loan last [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3040,"featured_media":559376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,33,6443,28],"tags":[197,168,5715,240,136],"class_list":["post-559356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-championship","category-leeds-united","category-transfers","tag-championship","tag-efl","tag-illan-meslier","tag-leeds-united","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Matt Lee","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3040"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}