Jesse Marsch has admitted that Illan Meslier almost missed Leeds United's win over Watford after suffering a setback to the injury he sustained against Wolverhampton Wanders before the international break. This was despite making a full recovering ahead of the Whites' clash with Southampton last weekend.
However, the France international is still having a problem with the muscle issue and he was a doubt for the clash at Vicarage Road. Marsch even had Kristoffer Klaesson lined-up to play in goal following his impressive cameo at Wolves, where he made a number of good saves.
Meslier, though, was ready in time for the game and made a few crucial interventions to secure the Whites' sixth clean sheet of the season. It is also Marsch's first since his appointment back in February as Leeds stretched their unbeaten run to four matches.
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In his post-match press conference, Marsch said: "Joffy just got fit yesterday and quickly, and Illan [Meslier] by the way as well. Even if you would've asked me [on] Thursday, I would've thought Kristoffer Klaesson would have been the goalkeeper today. In the last 24 hours, he felt much better and what a performance by the way, he was fantastic.
"It's the same injury he had from the Wolves game, it's still bothering him. I've even read some things saying about it wasn't a second yellow, it's three weeks later and he's still struggling from that.
"So for me, it was a little bit of a miraculous recovery given how he felt two days ago. I had a meeting with him and Kristoffer today and I said 'I know that goalkeepers like to have rhythm and I know that it's a sensitive situation when you have two goalkeepers and what the decisions are and how to make the right decision and support everybody including Marcos [Abad], our goalkeeper coach, in the process'.
"But we needed a big performance from whoever we made with the decision today and certainly Illan, in the moment, where he didn't train and he just had to prepare himself over 24 hours, delivered one of his best performances of the season and was incredibly stable."
