One of the biggest disappointments from the game on Saturday was Hannibal not seeing a single minute of playing time off the back of a cup performance I and many others felt was the catalyst for so much of the football we played in what was our best performance of the season.
Not fielding the player in any shape or form in the following game sends out a rather bleak message I feel, but more than that, without Hannibal's insane workrate and positional understanding, a lot of what knitted us tighter on Tuesday was taken straight back out the team, which bought Palace far more time on the ball and gave us a lot less as we couldn't snuff out fires before they got deep into midfield or even breached it. Amrabat bundling into players and looking more off the pace than he did just a few days earlier, and Casemiro reverting to the player who looks uncomfortable and last ditch weren't coincidences, they were byproducts of said time between thought and action being reduced because there was no Hannibal haranguing and shepherding runners into tactical traps any longer.
There's a fair statement to be made in saying Palace were not giving it 100% on Tuesday beyond the first 20 or so minutes. A counter to that statement can be that we made them not fancy it [the game] and had them decide it wasn't a battle worth contesting anymore. In other words, we forced the narrative that wasn't pre-determined because of the incessant pressure that was leading to turnovers and forced, ill-considered passing.
There can be disputes on how well or poorly Hannibal used the ball once he had it, but there's very little negative discussion to be had in terms of his effectiveness to his team and teammates in winning it back and enabling other players to better focus on what they excel at. He was a massive net positive to the midfield unit, in my opinion.
This can't go in his performance thread because it's about what we do with him rather than taking about past performance - this team needs catalysts, which is why we're always looking for heroes and saviours. The best teams have a number of players who can turn the tide and force the collective to up their game whilst carrying the extra burden in the interim. We're short on this and, I feel, should be latching onto any player who has it about him to aid others in performing their own duties better. This isn't a conundrum - given the data set isn't extensive enough to state that Mejbri is an irrefutable - but it is worth questioning what a flailing team in need of those exact properties the young Tunisian has in abundance should do in terms of extraction for the greater good. In other words, fielding him (or literally anyone who would offer what he does) when bigger names gobble up starting spots by what seems like default.
Like I said in a previous paragraph, Hannibal not starting on Saturday was fair enough, to a degree, but then, not fielding at all, and, in fact, being supplanted by the invisible man himself in Donny van de Beek? It was like throwing away so much of what enabled us to play just a few days earlier for no logical reason.
If Hannibal was interchangeable and we had anyone else in the squad as dogged and on point with their pressing and harassment as him, the question could be expanded to that player too, but we don't. Hannibal is one of one seeing as we got rid of Fred. Mount is a solid presser, but only high up the pitch, not in tracking runners all the way back into midfield or ushering a player on the ball into traps set deeper in midfield. Not a criticism, just not his game. There's not a top end PL team who isn't running opponents off the ball. They don't have Hannibal's record breaking pressuring stats, but nor do they need them, as their midfield collectives are cohesive and all put in the prerequisite work to win the ball back succinctly in a manner ours struggle with. Hannibal has a niche and our slower deeper midfielders need it a lot more than the aforementioned PL sides do - Hannibal has the potential to be our "legs" and compensate for others, or another way to put it would be to say to balance the midfield and give it the urgency and agency all our competitors for CL spots have.
If you've troubled yourself to read the above, and so happen to agree with it, what would you do in terms of integrating Hannibal into the team? If you see the benefits it's stated that he could bring to the team, who wouldn't you remove in lieu of that boost to our engine room? We're losing a lot of games; we look unimpressive and I think the forum mostly agrees our midfield is not up to par in a number of factors that make for a silky smooth, PL ready unit.
Please no tangents: This thread is not calling Hannibal the next Bryan Robson or Roy Keane, nor is it proclaiming him the successor to any of our great midfielders. His performance thread already discusses the need to do better with the ball, but what is being put forth here is getting the best haranguer in the squad (no Fred; is there even another contender?) into the team for the greater good of the collective.
Not fielding the player in any shape or form in the following game sends out a rather bleak message I feel, but more than that, without Hannibal's insane workrate and positional understanding, a lot of what knitted us tighter on Tuesday was taken straight back out the team, which bought Palace far more time on the ball and gave us a lot less as we couldn't snuff out fires before they got deep into midfield or even breached it. Amrabat bundling into players and looking more off the pace than he did just a few days earlier, and Casemiro reverting to the player who looks uncomfortable and last ditch weren't coincidences, they were byproducts of said time between thought and action being reduced because there was no Hannibal haranguing and shepherding runners into tactical traps any longer.
There's a fair statement to be made in saying Palace were not giving it 100% on Tuesday beyond the first 20 or so minutes. A counter to that statement can be that we made them not fancy it [the game] and had them decide it wasn't a battle worth contesting anymore. In other words, we forced the narrative that wasn't pre-determined because of the incessant pressure that was leading to turnovers and forced, ill-considered passing.
There can be disputes on how well or poorly Hannibal used the ball once he had it, but there's very little negative discussion to be had in terms of his effectiveness to his team and teammates in winning it back and enabling other players to better focus on what they excel at. He was a massive net positive to the midfield unit, in my opinion.
This can't go in his performance thread because it's about what we do with him rather than taking about past performance - this team needs catalysts, which is why we're always looking for heroes and saviours. The best teams have a number of players who can turn the tide and force the collective to up their game whilst carrying the extra burden in the interim. We're short on this and, I feel, should be latching onto any player who has it about him to aid others in performing their own duties better. This isn't a conundrum - given the data set isn't extensive enough to state that Mejbri is an irrefutable - but it is worth questioning what a flailing team in need of those exact properties the young Tunisian has in abundance should do in terms of extraction for the greater good. In other words, fielding him (or literally anyone who would offer what he does) when bigger names gobble up starting spots by what seems like default.
Like I said in a previous paragraph, Hannibal not starting on Saturday was fair enough, to a degree, but then, not fielding at all, and, in fact, being supplanted by the invisible man himself in Donny van de Beek? It was like throwing away so much of what enabled us to play just a few days earlier for no logical reason.
If Hannibal was interchangeable and we had anyone else in the squad as dogged and on point with their pressing and harassment as him, the question could be expanded to that player too, but we don't. Hannibal is one of one seeing as we got rid of Fred. Mount is a solid presser, but only high up the pitch, not in tracking runners all the way back into midfield or ushering a player on the ball into traps set deeper in midfield. Not a criticism, just not his game. There's not a top end PL team who isn't running opponents off the ball. They don't have Hannibal's record breaking pressuring stats, but nor do they need them, as their midfield collectives are cohesive and all put in the prerequisite work to win the ball back succinctly in a manner ours struggle with. Hannibal has a niche and our slower deeper midfielders need it a lot more than the aforementioned PL sides do - Hannibal has the potential to be our "legs" and compensate for others, or another way to put it would be to say to balance the midfield and give it the urgency and agency all our competitors for CL spots have.
If you've troubled yourself to read the above, and so happen to agree with it, what would you do in terms of integrating Hannibal into the team? If you see the benefits it's stated that he could bring to the team, who wouldn't you remove in lieu of that boost to our engine room? We're losing a lot of games; we look unimpressive and I think the forum mostly agrees our midfield is not up to par in a number of factors that make for a silky smooth, PL ready unit.
Please no tangents: This thread is not calling Hannibal the next Bryan Robson or Roy Keane, nor is it proclaiming him the successor to any of our great midfielders. His performance thread already discusses the need to do better with the ball, but what is being put forth here is getting the best haranguer in the squad (no Fred; is there even another contender?) into the team for the greater good of the collective.
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