Leeds United boss Marcelo Bielsa may face a real dilemma in the near future.
Pundit and former Leeds United striker Noel Whelan has told Sporting Life that he thinks Marcelo Bielsa must tread carefully with his decision over playing Bailey Peacock-Farrell or Jamal Blackman.
The Whites went into the weekend as the Championship league leaders, but suffered a nightmare Saturday evening away at fellow promotion contenders West Bromwich Albion.
West Brom – on a dismal run of form – managed to claim a 4-1 win over Marcelo Biela’s side, handing the Argentinian his biggest defeat since becoming Leeds boss.
A rampant West Brom were all over Leeds throughout, and four goals in 32 second half minutes effectively put the game beyond Leeds’ reach, with Pablo Hernandez bagging a late consolation.
It was a torrid display from Leeds, and one player who has been heavily criticised is goalkeeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell, especially as he allowed a long-range hit from Matt Phillips to squirm past him and into the net for 2-0.
That really gave Leeds a mountain to climb, and again brought up the debate over who should be in goal for Leeds, with Peacock-Farrell committing a couple of errors this season.
Jamal Blackman was brought in on loan from Chelsea over the summer, but has yet to make a single league appearance as Bielsa has gone with Peacock-Farrell so far this term.
Now, pundit and ex-Leeds striker Whelan has suggested that Blackman may be seeing this as the time to pounce and take the shirt from Peacock-Farrell after another mistake, but called on Bielsa to ‘tread carefully’ in order to not destroy Peacock-Farrell’s confidence – and ultimately doesn’t think either are truly good enough for a promotion campaign.
“There’s a lot of debate about that, and there was after the game, because it was another massive mistake by Bailey Peacock-Farrell,” said Whelan. “He knew – he faceplanted his dish right into the grass, he knew that he should have saved that, you shouldn’t be conceding goals like that when you’re still in the game. But he’s an international goalkeeper – Jamal Blackman isn’t. He’s kept him out up until this point, so the debate goes on.”
“You’ve got to tread carefully with this. Once again, we go back to the players and their mental toughness. He’s gonna have to get over that, he’s gonna go on international duty now with Northern Ireland…Jamal Blackman will be sitting there thinking ‘this is my time now, it’s another mistake’. But realistically, would either of those be your first-choice goalkeeper that’s gonna get you into the Premier League? Probably not,” he added.
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