Hannibal Mejbri - Manchester United Player

I know it's such a cliche thing to say but he looks physically ready. Not to say he should play 90 min games but he might be capable of 'strong' outings as a late sub.

Having a good touch, feint and ability on the ball is good but you need to be able to affect the game on your own terms. Amad reminds me of the former but not quite having that extra yard of pace/body strength. It's crazy to judge on only 10 mins of course but Hannibal looked promising.

I said similar about Elanga in that he has some serious pace.
 
I said in the pre match thread vs Wolves that I expect him to shine on his debut. I wasn't disappointed - watching the U23s, he always finds a way to get involved, rarely a passenger and his mix of energy, tenacity and skill is just a joy to behold. He's the type to burst on to the scene and make everyone sit u go wow!

From the few games he's played with Amad, they have a great understanding, and it would be great if they get chances to feature together going forward
 
hellhunter said:
I like McT, I really do, but Fletcher was a way better player than I see McT ever becoming.
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Fletch was a great squad player. That’s it.

VP89 said:
Fletcher was more than just a squad player, and far better than what McTominay offers us right now.
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I think we are romanticizing Fletch. He was never really part of our best 11. Of his 13 seasons with us, for just 3 of those he had 40 or more appearances. Carrick and Scholes were first choice over him and before Carrick was with us, Roy Keane was. Modern footballers are much more technical than that era and from a skills perspective McT is already better than Fletcher. He’s got 12 goals in 132 appearances and is just 24. Fletch had 24 goals in 326 appearances.... They both scored important goals in big matches and seem to save their best performances for the biggest games. This isn’t a knock on Fletcher. If McT has a career with us that is similar to Fletcher, we’ll all be very pleased.
Back to Hannibal. I’d be so stoked if he emerged as an option in the midfield for us next season.
 
He is clearly very talented. We should give him more game time next season, if not just send him out on loan. Playing for u-23 is not going to do much for his progression next season. I remember when he joined us for 10m 2 years ago, he said his plan is the break into Man Utd first team in 2 years time, and now is the time. He choose to join us with big reputation of talented wonderkid, so I am sure he is quite ambitious and know what he is aiming for.

At around 18 Foden has already made 36 first team appearance for City. I am not saying he will definitely end up as good. But as a very talented youngster with ambition, if he is not playing enough games he will be looking to leave soon, similar to Sancho to Dortmund or Pogba to Juventus at very young age.

Sancho at 18: 56 games for Dortmund
Greenwood at 18: 53 games for us
Foden at 18: 36 games for City

Diallo at 18: 13 games for Atalanta and us so far
Hannibal at 18: 1 games for us so far

Meanwhile,

Camavinga at 18: 67 games for Rennes
Bellingham at 17: 45 games for Dortmund
Monkoko at 16: 15 games for Dortmund
 
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DSG said:
Fletch was a great squad player. That’s it.



I think we are romanticizing Fletch. He was never really part of our best 11. Of his 13 seasons with us, for just 3 of those he had 40 or more appearances. Carrick and Scholes were first choice over him and before Carrick was with us, Roy Keane was. Modern footballers are much more technical than that era and from a skills perspective McT is already better than Fletcher. He’s got 12 goals in 132 appearances and is just 24. Fletch had 24 goals in 326 appearances.... They both scored important goals in big matches and seem to save their best performances for the biggest games. This isn’t a knock on Fletcher. If McT has a career with us that is similar to Fletcher, we’ll all be very pleased.
Back to Hannibal. I’d be so stoked if he emerged as an option in the midfield for us next season.
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He made PFA team of the year in 2010, so he definitely was then.
 
DSG said:
Fletch was a great squad player. That’s it.



I think we are romanticizing Fletch. He was never really part of our best 11. Of his 13 seasons with us, for just 3 of those he had 40 or more appearances. Carrick and Scholes were first choice over him and before Carrick was with us, Roy Keane was. Modern footballers are much more technical than that era and from a skills perspective McT is already better than Fletcher. He’s got 12 goals in 132 appearances and is just 24. Fletch had 24 goals in 326 appearances.... They both scored important goals in big matches and seem to save their best performances for the biggest games. This isn’t a knock on Fletcher. If McT has a career with us that is similar to Fletcher, we’ll all be very pleased.
Back to Hannibal. I’d be so stoked if he emerged as an option in the midfield for us next season.
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Peoples over romanticism of Fletcher is because it happened during the same period where we were managed by SAF and would routinely win titles.

Fletcher under LVG, Jose and Ole would not be looked at this super player either.

I personally think Mctominay being part of a team that ended up 2nd in a team managed by a “PE Coach” would have been better than the likes of Oshea, Fletcher, Cleverely etc when managed under SAF.

I remember I had to wait an absolute age until fletcher reached “his prime” to see his best and most useful season for us. He used to be a slightly annoying SAF favorite in my eyes until that prime season. Mctominay is a good 3 years maybe away from that and he has been useful for near 2 years already.
 
Fast track him in the first team. The sooner Fred and McTominay are out of the picture, the better.
 
Imo next season he and Amad will be getting the Greenwood treatment from last season.
 
RedRonaldo said:
At around 18 Foden has already made 36 first team appearance for City. I am not saying he will definitely end up as good. But as a very talented youngster with ambition, if he is not playing enough games he will be looking to leave soon, similar to Sancho to Dortmund or Pogba to Juventus at very young age.
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That just isn't a fair comparison -- he only got to United like 18months ago from France when he was barely 16. He has had to climatise, settle in a new country and then with first the U-18 and eventually the U23s.
Foden's a Manc and has been at City all his life.

Would Phil have made the same progression if he went abroad at 18?
 
Dang, Ronaldinho and Rui Costa comparisons.

Hopefully the 44 jersey doesn’t curse like it did Januzaj, Pereira and Chong, all three who looked like they’d make it when they had first gotten the number.

But having followed him rather keenly since he’s been here, he seems to have elite mentality compared to those 3.

Fingers crossed and I hope to see him more of him in the first team next season. He should be heavily involved in first team pre-season since there is the Euros.
 
sglowrider said:
That just isn't a fair comparison -- he only got to United like 18months ago from France when he was barely 16. He has had to climatise, settle in a new country and then with first the U-18 and eventually the U23s.
Foden's a Manc and has been at City all his life.

Would Phil have made the same progression if he went abroad at 18?
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Both Sancho, Pogba and even Bellingham made immediate impact and progression once they moved abroad at similar age.
 
Rolls Royce of a player. He will break into the first team next season no doubt.
 
Cassidy said:
Not in the PL
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So what, they may as well moved to other league to get more first team appearance and better development, which is the main point here. Don’t forget these players mentioned (Pogba, Sancho, Bellingham) all moved away from PL in order to get more first team appearance and developed quicker into worldclass players. Playing for u23 like Diallo and Hannibal did wouldn’t help them much.

In other words, if Diallo/Hannibal have the ambitions of Pogba/Sancho/Foden, they may not entertain another season of u23 football here.
 
Cassidy said:
Not in the PL
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Foden and Greenwood did.

Bellingham played well in UCL this year and racked up 40+ appearance for Dortmund first team while Pogba was winning Italian League at 18-19 and Sancho was performing at top level in Germany and in Europe at that age.
 
pratyush_utd said:
Foden and Greenwood did.

Bellingham played well in UCL this year and racked up 40+ appearance for Dortmund first team while Pogba was winning Italian League at 18-19 and Sancho was performing at top level in Germany and in Europe at that age.
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Foden has taking a while to break in the City 11 and was in around that squad alot longer than Mejbri at United. (Who has been at United only 18 months). I think he will play in the PL next season
 
DSG said:
Fletch was a great squad player. That’s it.

I think we are romanticizing Fletch. He was never really part of our best 11. Of his 13 seasons with us, for just 3 of those he had 40 or more appearances. Carrick and Scholes were first choice over him and before Carrick was with us, Roy Keane was. Modern footballers are much more technical than that era and from a skills perspective McT is already better than Fletcher. He’s got 12 goals in 132 appearances and is just 24. Fletch had 24 goals in 326 appearances.... They both scored important goals in big matches and seem to save their best performances for the biggest games. This isn’t a knock on Fletcher. If McT has a career with us that is similar to Fletcher, we’ll all be very pleased.
Back to Hannibal. I’d be so stoked if he emerged as an option in the midfield for us next season.
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Some of what you say is accurate for most of Fletcher's time with us. He was normally just a squad player and wasn't part of our best 11. Saying McTominay is better skill-wise than Fletcher is completely wrong though. Fletch was comfortably better in that regard, which is why he broke into a much better team at a younger age and at this stage of their careers had made an extra 40 appearances. He struggled to impose himself at first in the adults game because of physicality, which is obviously where McTominay's main strengths are. Talking as if 12 years is a completely different era in terms of technical skills. :lol:

You are also completely forgetting/ignoring the level that Fletcher reached in the 2 years before his illness struck. He clearly stepped up significantly and was an important player in our strongest 11, not just better than any level that Scott has reached but far better. Hell, he even made the PFA Team of the Year. Unfortunately that all ended with his illness as he was understandably never the same again. But he reached that top level in the season he turned 25, so that's the equivalent of next season for Scott. We'll see if he takes a similar step up but unfortunately I doubt it.
 
MadDogg said:
Some of what you say is accurate for most of Fletcher's time with us. He was normally just a squad player and wasn't part of our best 11. Saying McTominay is better skill-wise than Fletcher is completely wrong though. Fletch was comfortably better in that regard, which is why he broke into a much better team at a younger age and at this stage of their careers had made an extra 40 appearances. He struggled to impose himself at first in the adults game because of physicality, which is obviously where McTominay's main strengths are. Talking as if 12 years is a completely different era in terms of technical skills. :lol:

You are also completely forgetting/ignoring the level that Fletcher reached in the 2 years before his illness struck. He clearly stepped up significantly and was an important player in our strongest 11, not just better than any level that Scott has reached but far better. Hell, he even made the PFA Team of the Year. Unfortunately that all ended with his illness as he was understandably never the same again. But he reached that top level in the season he turned 25, so that's the equivalent of next season for Scott. We'll see if he takes a similar step up but unfortunately I doubt it.
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Disagree with the comment regarding technical skills. Watch the classic matches from 15 years ago on the Man Utd app. There is a very visible difference in workrate, technique levels, speed of play, speed of the players, ball movement, tactics, etc. Youth coaching, training regimens, biometric analysis, nutrition, medical science.... All have progressed significantly since Fletcher’s prime. I wouldn’t say it’s a different era, but there is a clear difference.

I realize that there is a section of the Caf that thinks Scott McTominay is shite and not good enough for United. My intention in using Fletcher as a comparison was to illustrate the fact that squad players are useful, they can perform in big matches and absolutely die on the pitch for the club. Whether McT makes a PFA team is irrelevant. He is, and hopefully will continue to be, a useful squad player for us, similar to the role Fletcher played under SAF.

As an aside, making a PFA team of the year is not an accurate indication of the quality of a player. Both Darren Fletcher and Eric Cantona have won the honor just once. Does that mean they were equal as players? Heavens no. Ashley Young was named to the PFA team 3 times... you see where I am going with this.
 
I expect him to get around 500 minutes next season, he seems physically ready for it so it's about time.
 
Hannibal is going to kill it here. Everything feels so damn right about him. He put himself in a position to be found constantly, didn't shy away from the ball on his debut, constantly did adventurous things to move the ball forward, great close control, shakes off his marker well. All good signs. Just need to see who he puts pressure on in our starting XI.


(I don't know why there's so much chatter about Fletcher here, but here's my 2 cents. He was a squad player for most of his career, but he was a legit part of the starting midfield we looked to for success in that 2009-2010 period. He was dearly missed in the 2009 CL final after he got wrongfully sent off against Arsenal, he played all the big games that season.)
 
DSG said:
Whether McT makes a PFA team is irrelevant. He is, and hopefully will continue to be, a useful squad player for us, similar to the role Fletcher played under SAF.

As an aside, making a PFA team of the year is not an accurate indication of the quality of a player. Both Darren Fletcher and Eric Cantona have won the honor just once. Does that mean they were equal as players? Heavens no. Ashley Young was named to the PFA team 3 times... you see where I am going with this.
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Fletcher always had the potential (as seen by Ferguson wanting to give him his debut when he was 15 or 16) to be a top player. He was hugely rated when he was coming through the youth ranks, always talked about as one that'll take the step up. The most surprising thing about him is that he did take longer than expected to do so, but even then he was 24-25 when he became an important player which is about the age you expect midfielders to start really getting into their prime. But once he did, he certainly was not just a useful squad player anymore. He was part of our strongest 11 during a time we were the best team in England and 2nd in the world only to arguably the greatest footballing side of all time. If he hadn't had that illness and had continued in that form for the next 5 or 6 years we'd probably be talking about him being at a similar level as Carrick.

McTominay was never talked about as having anything close to the same level of potential. The most surprising thing is that he has done as well as he has, reaching a better level than I think the vast majority would have expected when he was 16 years old. Good on him for that, and I'd love nothing more than for him to surprise me and step up in a similar was as Fletcher did.

Anyway, not sure how we're talking about Fletcher and McTominay in a thread for Hannibal. :lol:
 
Bwuk said:
Moves like Grealish
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I actually think he's a touch faster....but like Grealish, he is going to be fouled a lot but if we have the players around him and we'll more than likely see a quicker release of his passes into space and likewise he will have more space to operate in. He does like to have the ball though
 
jeepers said:
Dang, Ronaldinho and Rui Costa comparisons.

Hopefully the 44 jersey doesn’t curse like it did Januzaj, Pereira and Chong, all three who looked like they’d make it when they had first gotten the number.

But having followed him rather keenly since he’s been here, he seems to have elite mentality compared to those 3.

Fingers crossed and I hope to see him more of him in the first team next season. He should be heavily involved in first team pre-season since there is the Euros.
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Wasn't Hannibal wearing 46?
 
Bwuk said:
Moves like Grealish
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Yeah, as Mason reminds everyone of RvP, Hannibal sure reminds me of Grealish. Granted I've only seen him in action yesterday but got instant Grealish vibes from watching him against Wolves. He even got that 'get your body infront of players to draw a foul' down to a tee.
 
He had very few touches but you can see his quality so easily. He is so good on the ball, also for first team he will be much more protected than he was at U23s.

Hopefully he will get more chances next season, such talented players should be in the first team squad playing regular mins.
 
Similar to everyone else's thoughts, but as far as debut 10 minute cameos go thought he looked really good. You could see the talent that led us to pay that fee for him a couple years ago. Hopefully he gets more opportunities in the first team for us next season, but I think I'd prefer to see him boss it on loan in the Championship.

Whatever happens I'm just happy to see him play and the other team not kicking lumps out of him!
 
DSG said:
Disagree with the comment regarding technical skills. Watch the classic matches from 15 years ago on the Man Utd app. There is a very visible difference in workrate, technique levels, speed of play, speed of the players, ball movement, tactics, etc. Youth coaching, training regimens, biometric analysis, nutrition, medical science.... All have progressed significantly since Fletcher’s prime. I wouldn’t say it’s a different era, but there is a clear difference.

I realize that there is a section of the Caf that thinks Scott McTominay is shite and not good enough for United. My intention in using Fletcher as a comparison was to illustrate the fact that squad players are useful, they can perform in big matches and absolutely die on the pitch for the club. Whether McT makes a PFA team is irrelevant. He is, and hopefully will continue to be, a useful squad player for us, similar to the role Fletcher played under SAF.

As an aside, making a PFA team of the year is not an accurate indication of the quality of a player. Both Darren Fletcher and Eric Cantona have won the honor just once. Does that mean they were equal as players? Heavens no. Ashley Young was named to the PFA team 3 times... you see where I am going with this.
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The bold is nonsense. I’d agree with speed of play, workrate and pressing. It’s killing the game for me but technique....no chance players are technically better today than Scholes, Giggs, Rooney, Ronaldo, Henry, Ronaldinho, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Pirlo etc. I just don’t see many players at this level currently.

That aside this is Hannibals thread not McT or Fletcher. But for me McT has a way to go to get to Fletchers level, and I wasn’t a massive Fletcher fan, two seasons aside.
 
sglowrider said:
Thats not his best position.
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I think his future lies in midfield. He's had a lot of great performances at midfield, and the only reason why some feel he's better on the wing is because all of his recent (which has been a lot of matches) are all in that position. He did perform better in that position transition period on the wing, but that is too short to make any conclusions.

pratyush_utd said:
Foden and Greenwood did.

Bellingham played well in UCL this year and racked up 40+ appearance for Dortmund first team while Pogba was winning Italian League at 18-19 and Sancho was performing at top level in Germany and in Europe at that age.
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Bellingham was given game time at the Championship level where as Mejbri is playing at United. It was easier for Bellingham to be given the chance at first team level in England, and once he already had that experience, Dortmund had no problem giving him time.

Foden didn't play much at his age. Pogba didn't even play much for United at age 18. He's similar to Mejbri in that he was brought from France at age 16 and didn't get his debut until he was 18 at United. Didn't really get much chances until he went to Juve at age 19. Mejbri is 18. So Pogba is not an example of doing something Mejbri didn't. He had an impact at 19.5 years old, not 18.5. Many of us argue he could have done it at 18.5 years old if given more game time, but he was never given the chance and so we'll never know. Same with Hannibal.

Greenwood and Sancho are probably the best examples you can use. But it's not like Mejbri has been given the same minutes to prove himself at first team level. It's the coaches decision.

Maybe if he was given 2-3 starts (which would still be harsh) and then didn't do well, you could make that argument. It's incredibly harsh to simply make the argument based on one 15 min cameo.
 
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jeepers said:
Dang, Ronaldinho and Rui Costa comparisons.

Hopefully the 44 jersey doesn’t curse like it did Januzaj, Pereira and Chong, all three who looked like they’d make it when they had first gotten the number.

But having followed him rather keenly since he’s been here, he seems to have elite mentality compared to those 3.

Fingers crossed and I hope to see him more of him in the first team next season. He should be heavily involved in first team pre-season since there is the Euros.
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Good job he’s no.46 then. :wenger:

Hopefully he’s one of the first choice backup players next season. Rather than Mata/James.
 
Hannibal’s speed and technic impressed me. He will be an offensive asset already from next season.

As always when inexperienced young players debuts, he struggled a bit with his defensive positioning: gave the opponent too much space or wasn’t close enough when the opponent received the ball, but he compensated with great speed and intensity and managed to catch up. It isn’t a viable strategy for 90m though.

The good news: We have something special going on with our young players :drool:
 
Alemar said:
I don’t see Shoretire around the first team next season, he is too raw (yet). Maybe just a few appearances here and there, so if there is chance for good loan maybe it’s worth it. And don’t forget we also have Pellistri (who may be well ahead of Shoretire now after his loan).

Amad and Hannibal, on the contrary, may definitely be very useful off the bench players for the senior team already.
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I would agree that Amad and Hannibal are ahead of him at the moment. Shoretire has tried to play it safe in the few appearances he has made to date. He seems to lack confidence which will come with more exposure to the 1st team. I've a feeling that Pellistri was bought as a gamble, I can see him been loaned out for the next year or so and either sold for profit or brought back.
 
The Grealish comparison does hold weight in the attacking third. But IMO, Mejbri also has a passing range which enables him to be dominant in the deeper phases of play, when it comes to building the play.
 
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