{"id":624347,"date":"2023-06-13T07:09:30","date_gmt":"2023-06-13T11:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=624347"},"modified":"2023-06-13T08:37:09","modified_gmt":"2023-06-13T12:37:09","slug":"chelsea-illan-meslier-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2023\/06\/13\/chelsea-illan-meslier-message\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018If It\u2019s to Be Number One&#8230;.\u2019: Chelsea Sent Transfer Message by \u00a35 Million \u2018Fantastic\u2019 Goalkeeper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea have discovered that they can only sign Leeds United goalkeeper Illan Meslier if he&#8217;s guaranteed a starting place at the club <a href=\"https:\/\/rmcsport.bfmtv.com\/football\/transferts\/mercato-meslier-ouvre-la-porte-a-un-depart-de-leeds_AV-202306110333.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">by the player himself<\/a>. This comes after the 23-year-old Frenchman was relegated from the Premier League last season.<\/p>\n<h2>Chelsea Sent Message by Illan Meslier<\/h2>\n<p><a id=\"HSBFNOKYTXhwInC1-txmOA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1252778619\" 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:'HSBFNOKYTXhwInC1-txmOA',sig:'J7t7cVDKgiXOPpCsUzq9-_pZxk9Z7I-4_WaaZ2skOWk=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1252778619',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>What Illan Meslier Thinks About Chelsea Rumors<\/h3>\n<p>It has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/sport\/football\/chelsea-fc-lampard-mendy-kepa-transfer-news-raya-onana-kobel-b1074103.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported<\/a> that the Blues are likely to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2023\/04\/15\/chelsea-contact-three-players-goalkeeper-search\/\" target=\"_self\">look for a new goalkeeper<\/a> to play for them next season and they have already been linked with players like Inter Milan star Andre Onana. Meslier&#8217;s has also been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.caughtoffside.com\/2023\/04\/13\/illan-meslier-said-to-have-his-head-turned-by-interest-from-premier-league-giants\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported<\/a> and the 23-year-old was personally asked about his future and possible move to Stamford Bridge in a recent interview.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2023\/06\/06\/chelsea-reignite-interest-romeo-lavia\/\" target=\"_self\">Chelsea Reignite Interest in Southampton Man Romeo Lavia<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He told RMC Sport: &#8220;For now, I have a contract until 2026. Officially, I still belong to Leeds. I will have to think about what could be the best project, be that at Leeds or another club. If it is to go and be on the bench, I\u2019m not interested in that. If it\u2019s to be the number one, of course, you can\u2019t say \u2018I\u2019m not interested in Chelsea.\u2019 I\u2019d prefer to go to a less reputable club where I\u2019ll have more game time than a top European club where I\u2019d sit on the bench.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Can Meslier Fit In at Chelsea?<\/h3>\n<p>Meslier had a difficult time in the Premier League last season and was not able to save Leeds from relegation. However, his first season in the division showed a lot of promise. The 23-year-old has the potential to be a great shot-stopper, but struggles somewhat with distribution, especially over longer distances. He&#8217;d be one for the Blues to develop in the future, having underperformed his PSxG against last season.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2023\/06\/02\/chelsea-moises-caicedo-priority\/\" target=\"_self\">Chelsea Ready to Push for Brighton Midfielder Moises Caicedo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Edouard Mendy could <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1656927186836652032?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reportedly<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2023\/05\/12\/chelsea-could-lose-edouard-mendy\/\" target=\"_self\">leave in the summer<\/a> and with Kepa Arrizabalaga being quite error-prone, Meslier could strongly fight for the number-one spot at Stamford Bridge if he&#8217;s signed by them. The Frenchman, who was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportskeeda.com\/football\/news-really-stand-out-liverpool-legend-jamie-carragher-heaps-praise-leeds-united-star\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hailed as &#8216;fantastic&#8217;<\/a> by Jamie Carragher last season, was signed for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teamtalk.com\/news\/fee-revealed-leeds-transfer-meslier\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">around \u00a35 million<\/a> by Leeds in 2020 and has made 117 league appearances &#8211; in which he&#8217;s kept 28 clean sheets.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/commons.m.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?search=Stamford+bridge+chelsea&amp;title=Special:MediaSearch&amp;type=image\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Featured image: Wikimedia Commons\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea have discovered that they can only sign Leeds United goalkeeper Illan Meslier if he&#8217;s guaranteed a starting place at the club by the player himself. This comes after the 23-year-old Frenchman was relegated from the Premier League last season. Chelsea Sent Message by Illan Meslier Embed from Getty Images What Illan Meslier Thinks About [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4218,"featured_media":624385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[11,33,2,6443,3,7188],"tags":[8611,5715,9389],"class_list":["post-624347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-championship","category-featured","category-leeds-united","category-premier-league","category-rumours","tag-chelsea-transfer-rumours","tag-illan-meslier","tag-leeds-united-transfer-rumours"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624347","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\/4218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}