Leeds United had looked unstoppable in the Championship between the turn of the New Year and most recent international break.
The Whites won 11 of their 12 league matches between that time period but have stumbled massively since the resumption of club football over the Easter period.
In the seven matches of the run-in, Leeds have picked up just eight points from a possible 21 available, with their worst performance undoubtedly coming last night.
With Leeds in action before Ipswich Town’s two games in hand, they had the chance to apply enormous pressure on Kieran McKenna’s side with a win.
However, Leeds saved arguably their worst performance of the season for the worst possible time as they were beaten emphatically 4-0 by Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road, prompting an angry reaction from fans at full-time.
BBC pundit says Illan Meslier has looked really ‘shaky’ recently
It is difficult to point out a single good individual performance in a Leeds shirt last night. The backline was all over the place, midfield absent, and attack way off it.
With that said, for all QPR’s positive play, they did not have to do too much in order to score four goals. Ilia Gruev was criticised by Don Goodman for his involvement in the first two, while the second two both came from set-pieces.
While Leeds’ defending was really poor for all of them, pundit Jon Newsome was also critical of goalkeeper Illan Meslier when speaking post-match on BBC Radio Leeds.
He believes the 24-year-old shotstopper has looked ‘really shaky’ recently, which is worrying considering how good Leeds’ defence has been for the majority of the season.
He said: “Meslier, he has looked really shaky the back-end of this season. We were talking about him in the car on the way down here. He has played behind a defence that has been, up until tonight, extremely good, and he has still looked a little bit shaky.
“If we are lucky enough to get promoted to the Premier League, which is, as we all know, is a completely different level, yeah, there are question marks on him, there really are.”
Meslier fails to make the crucial saves for Leeds
While none of the goals were directly as a result of his mistakes, the majority of the shots on target Leeds face always just seem to go in.
Leeds have conceded seven goals over the last two matches from just 10 shots on target, with Meslier just currently in a run of form where he isn’t pulling off big saves at crucial times.
As per Sofa Score, QPR accumulated an expected goals (xG) of just 0.72 last night. xG is a metric which measures the probability of a goalscoring chance will find the net.
That suggests the quality of the shots QPR were having were not necessarily high, but yet they still managed to score four goals.
Though it seems like a distant possibility now, Meslier is one of the first players who need replacing if Leeds are to get promoted in the coming weeks.
