The future of Hannibal Mejbri - will he get a real chance this season?

Devil may care said:
He also gives the ball away constantly and attacks regularly break down when it comes to him, there's more to teamwork than just stats.
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Again I agree. Our last champions league tie a prime example. First half beying Pogba, he was the worst player on the pitch....he only did better in the second half coming deep and playing sideways passes so keeping the ball moving. And whats mentioned after the game "Fernandes has provided an assist in every tie of he champions league this season". Football is obsessed with stats, they are simply that, the fact of the matter was he was atrocious in the match, he even scuffed the assist somewhat.

Unlike some of the knee jerk reations to your comment. I totally agree, snt slatign Fernandes, saying sell him, saying drop him even. Yes he is contributing moments, but to criticise others and still talk about Fernandes in a glowing light where its quite obvious he isnt performing either is ludicrous. It annoys me the few times he has come off, he is replaced by Mata or Lingard virtually every time too....neither are doign muc, neither will probably be here after the summer....at least lets see a run out for Hannibal to see where he is at
 
Think Hannibal can replace Pogba in our side, both in terms of quality and position. I’d rather he wasn’t a #10, although I’d rather we didn’t play with one at all if I had my way.
 
The kid has to play next season. He has to be given a chance. Why not this season, once top 4 is gone play him. It can't be any worse.
 
Rozay said:
Think Hannibal can replace Pogba in our side, both in terms of quality and position. I’d rather he wasn’t a #10, although I’d rather we didn’t play with one at all if I had my way.
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Yeah, I agree. We're playing a #10 due to a complete lack of creativity at full back though, and a lack of penetration from the wide forwards. Let's hope that's addressed over the coming months and summer.
 
Do we think he's ready for first team football? People talk about him being a little immature, petulant, or whatever. But in footballing and physical terms, is he ready? Ultimately that's the main thing because we're talking about minutes not him becoming a focal point to be relied upon consistently. You would think someone of his reputed talent should be fairly close to coming off a bench.
 
I think it is going to be difficult to play both Bruno and Hannibal at the same time in the system we have right now.
 
It's absurd the amount of racist comments this lad is getting on social media from France because he chose to represent Tunisia..
 
Hester_manc said:
I think it is going to be difficult to play both Bruno and Hannibal at the same time in the system we have right now.
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Why? It's more balanced than Pogba and whichever non-6 we have posing as a #6 +Bruno. In any case, if we are to develop into a dominant team Bruno will need to change his game quite a bit. He's shown himself to be our best player during Ole's underdog tactics but for a dominant team he is just far too ill disciplined and wasteful in possession. Hopefully he can evolve into a more measured #8.

Edit: Failing that, he becomes a false nine.
 
Bastian said:
Why? It's more balanced than Pogba and whichever non-6 we have posing as a #6 +Bruno. In any case, if we are to develop into a dominant team Bruno will need to change his game quite a bit. He's shown himself to be our best player during Ole's underdog tactics but for a dominant team he is just far too ill disciplined and wasteful in possession. Hopefully he can evolve into a more measured #8.

Edit: Failing that, he becomes a false nine.
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Because I think that Hannibal and Bruno are very similar players, and I find it difficult to see two players of that type in the formation, we are playing right now. Maybe if we were playing in Rangnick original formation 4-2-2-2.
 
The only criticism I really have of Rangnick today, Jones, Bailly and Lindelof on the bench and no Mejbri (and no other central midfielder) - if he's not injured or out with covid it's well daft.
 
Bastian said:
The only criticism I really have of Rangnick today, Jones, Bailly and Lindelof on the bench and no Mejbri (and no other central midfielder) - if he's not injured or out with covid it's well daft.
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I guess it's a question on if he really trusts Mejbri considering we really need every point we can get at this stage. Chucking the kid in currently might seem like a bit of a baptism of fire
 
I assumed he was sick or injured, as our CM options off the bench were shocking.
 
L1nk said:
I guess it's a question on if he really trusts Mejbri considering we really need every point we can get at this stage. Chucking the kid in currently might seem like a bit of a baptism of fire
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I'm not saying he had to play. I was expecting him not to get minutes this month, but Jones and Bailly. He should most definitely be on that bench with McTominay out.
 
I can swear Howson recently did a video and hinted at Hannibal having attitude issues. I really hope that’s not the case as he seems to have the talent to be more heavily involved in the near future
 
AussieDevil said:
I can swear Howson recently did a video and hinted at Hannibal having attitude issues. I really hope that’s not the case as he seems to have the talent to be more heavily involved in the near future
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This was the video and he only praised him.

 
Seriously, why does this guy get no minutes? Seems odd given how rated he is and the fact our bench is often embarrassing for a club of our stature. You would think a bit of a midfield wildcard wouldn't go amiss.
 
Really like his decision making, particularly in situations when his team mates were making attacking runs but tightly marked by defenders.and he correctly decided to play it simple. Some of our first team players could do with his footballing brain.
 
Abraxas said:
Seriously, why does this guy get no minutes? Seems odd given how rated he is and the fact our bench is often embarrassing for a club of our stature. You would think a bit of a midfield wildcard wouldn't go amiss.
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That’s the weird thing… we brought on Matic and Mata the other night. It’s not like we’re stocked with midfielders?
 
He should be given his full debut in the next few games. About time he's thrown in and see if he sinks or swims.

He's got the talent but we need to see if he can step up.
 
Adam-Utd said:
He should be given his full debut in the next few games. About time he's thrown in and see if he sinks or swims.

He's got the talent but we need to see if he can step up.
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Sadly, I don’t think Ralf will do so. I had that kind of hope two months ago. Now, I felt it is not on his card anymore.
 
Needs a loan in league 1 or the championship first. U23s is a very poor standard.
 
This, for me, is the most infuriating aspect of our current set up. We look at Saka and Pedri and Gavi et all and constantly ask "where are ours. He is fecking is. A lad that is clearly ready for the first team and talented enough to already stake a claim. He is more talented that Fred or Scott at '8' or can even play LW for the moment but we fail to give him the chance. I hope he gets the chance, he won't, for the rest of the season or else he should look to leave to a different club and stop waiting for us to stop being idiots. Turns out Mason was more than ready (in a footballing sense) and this guy is too. No doubt we'll waste him.
 
AussieDevil said:
I can swear Howson recently did a video and hinted at Hannibal having attitude issues. I really hope that’s not the case as he seems to have the talent to be more heavily involved in the near future
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You only need to watch him play to see potential attitude problems. Seems to be a 50:50 chance of him spending most of the match having a running battle with the referee. Obviously this is no barrier to becoming a top player but he definitely needs to grow up a bit. Yong and lernin.
 
Leftback99 said:
Needs a loan in league 1 or the championship first. U23s is a very poor standard.
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Like we can afford to wait a season and see if he either a)gets minutes or b) learns anything to suggest he can cut it in a starting role for Utd. Loans are quite often useless where Utd are concerned.

loans are effective in some situations- either to allow a player to mature, to keep a player on the books that hasn’t reached their potential yet, to just get a player minutes as we don’t have space for them “right now”. But they are not always necessary and not always the best course of action. I understand it with pure academy kids who have just been at Utd all their life...it could be very beneficial from a human standpoint for them to go out on loan.

But Between Amad, Pellistri and Hannibal alone wehave spent nearly €50 million on youth. You simply don’t spend that without a healthy expectation that they are certain to step up at some point- We are gonna learn nothing from Amad sitting on the bench for Rangers and I would argue we would learn little more if he was playing. Sometimes kids just need to be given proper minutes in the first team and see if the sink or swim..

I would love to see a much more integrated training set up bringing players in from the 23s and 18s more often. Trim the squad...bring through the potential. RR is doing this more consistently and now with CL nearly off the table, let’s hope he gives a few kids a proper run out.

merit:Xavi also did something similar recently...brining more players in from Barca B. We have the talent. Let’s give it a shot.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
You only need to watch him play to see potential attitude problems. Seems to be a 50:50 chance of him spending most of the match having a running battle with the referee. Obviously this is no barrier to becoming a top player but he definitely needs to grow up a bit. Yong and lernin.
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As long as his attitude problems are with the ref and not his actual drive on a football pitch or issues off it then it doesn't matter the slightest. Rooney had similar issues but ultimately not the drive needed to make it at the top. The lad needs to be given chances right now and feck any talk of a loan to some shit Championship club.
 
There's a chance he's not better than McTominay or Fred as an 8..yet. I would think the manager would be quite aware if he was. He's trained around the first team. That's too big of a statement to make for a kid that's played football at the level he has.

What is more questionable is why there isn't more integration going on. After all you don't necessarily lob young lads into the first team regularly from day 1, unless they're truly exceptional in all departments. This is a guy that seems to be learning to keep it together, and probably tactically as a result. It's a lot harder to explain why we aren't starting that process. Getting him minutes off the bench in different situations, maybe the odd start in a well chosen fixture. That would be sensible.

The longer you delay that the more chance they never make it. Because at some point there probably comes an adjustment period in first team football. That's better coming earlier rather than later for a super talented player.
 
Leftback99 said:
Needs a loan in league 1 or the championship first. U23s is a very poor standard.
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I think the Championship is the best place to loan players. Plenty of good young coaches in there, physical and gets players used to playing in England. Laird and Garner have done very well there (until you pissed around with Laird), and I think Amad would likely have done fine, too. Hannibal has been at United three years now, though, and has done well. Surely he can get game time before the end of the season.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
You only need to watch him play to see potential attitude problems. Seems to be a 50:50 chance of him spending most of the match having a running battle with the referee. Obviously this is no barrier to becoming a top player but he definitely needs to grow up a bit. Yong and lernin.
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Moaning at the ref and having attitude problems someone like Ben Arfa has are completely different. Barcelona with Xavi, Iniesta and Messi were the greatest club side ever and spent half their matches hounding the ref. In Mejbri's case I'd argue his disdain for referees is more than justified, he's spent 2.5 years having potential leg breakers aimed at him go unpunished, some games facing upwards of 10 fouls against him (Tottenham springs to mind), and as soon as he retaliates he gets booked/sent off. He needs to pick his battles better, but anyone can see he's come on leaps and bounds in that regard this season.
 
He's clearly a talented player, who should be ready to start making inroads into first team football. You'd like to think he should get some minutes to see if he has what it takes and or if he can hold his own physically.

The problem comes because there are no games you can just expect to win and therefore you just can't take a punt throwing him into midfield because with either McT, Fred or Pogba beside him they haven't the nous no to help guide him through the game. Matic might, but his legs are gone and you'd probably concede much more ground than usual in midfield with both of them playing.

Most weeks this Utd side are either trying to close out a narrow win or scrambling to turn a potential draw into a win. Neither are situations where he's likely to be given a proper chance to see what he can do.
 
kidbob said:
As long as his attitude problems are with the ref and not his actual drive on a football pitch or issues off it then it doesn't matter the slightest. Rooney had similar issues but ultimately not the drive needed to make it at the top. The lad needs to be given chances right now and feck any talk of a loan to some shit Championship club.
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AltiUn said:
Moaning at the ref and having attitude problems someone like Ben Arfa has are completely different. Barcelona with Xavi, Iniesta and Messi were the greatest club side ever and spent half their matches hounding the ref. In Mejbri's case I'd argue his disdain for referees is more than justified, he's spent 2.5 years having potential leg breakers aimed at him go unpunished, some games facing upwards of 10 fouls against him (Tottenham springs to mind), and as soon as he retaliates he gets booked/sent off. He needs to pick his battles better, but anyone can see he's come on leaps and bounds in that regard this season.
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For sure. I would far rather a player with the sort of attitude problems we see from Hannibal on the pitch than more general issues in terms of effort and commitment. It’s still something he needs to work on though. Not a huge worry but might delay his integration into the first team.
 
With top 4 almost out of reach, Pogba and others contract expiring, do we really need to play them?

I would like to see Mejbri given chances now till the end of the season, surely if he is good enough, it won't be like a bad thing even if we are still going for top 4?
 
romufc said:
With top 4 almost out of reach, Pogba and others contract expiring, do we really need to play them?

I would like to see Mejbri given chances now till the end of the season, surely if he is good enough, it won't be like a bad thing even if we are still going for top 4?
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Agreed. I’d love to see him get a chance. But it won’t happen until we are mathematically out of top four.
 
romufc said:
With top 4 almost out of reach, Pogba and others contract expiring, do we really need to play them?

I would like to see Mejbri given chances now till the end of the season, surely if he is good enough, it won't be like a bad thing even if we are still going for top 4?
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I imagine we'll see him given a few games near the end of the season assuming we aren't in contention for a top 4 finish. If Arsenal lose their game in hand then it's still very much game on for Top 4.
 
RedSky said:
I imagine we'll see him given a few games near the end of the season assuming we aren't in contention for a top 4 finish. If Arsenal lose their game in hand then it's still very much game on for Top 4.
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I agree that we are still in contention however; if he is good enough he cant be that much of a downgrade right?

I'd get it if we had like a very good midfield and was working well but we don't. If he is going to break in next season, or if Ralf rates him, he should be given PL game time over the ones who are not going to be here next season.
 
romufc said:
I agree that we are still in contention however; if he is good enough he cant be that much of a downgrade right?

I'd get it if we had like a very good midfield and was working well but we don't. If he is going to break in next season, or if Ralf rates him, he should be given PL game time over the ones who are not going to be here next season.
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Ralf probably doesn't want to take the risk right now given we are still in contention for a top 4. Better the devil you know. I do find it frustrating he's not been given a chance this season though, he really should have. I guess thats the problem when we keep getting bullshit cup ties.
 
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