Manchester United have today welcomed the first cohort of players scheduled to return for pre-season training at Carrington.
The likes of Kobbie Mainoo, Luke Shaw, Facundo Pellistri, Alejandro Garnacho and Lisandro Martinez are still involved with their nations at Euro 2024 and Copa America respectively, while those who recently exited international tournaments – like Bruno Fernandes and Diogo Dalot – will be given a longer break to rest and recover.
Nevertheless, pictures have emerged on social media this morning showing numerous Reds arriving at the training complex ready to get preparations underway for the pre-season tour, which kicks off on July 15.
Even players who are almost certain to be sold in the coming weeks will feature throughout the tour, including Hannibal Mejbri, who is on the back of a severely underwhelming loan spell with Sevilla.
The 21-year-old swapped Manchester for Seville in January in hopes of acquiring increased game time away from Old Trafford, having featured sporadically under Erik ten Hag in the first half of the term.
However, he was used even more sparingly by Quique Sanchez Flores; Hannibal made just six La Liga appearances in total during his five-month stay in Spain, totalling a mere 101 minutes on the pitch.
Of those six outings, only one came from the offset, while the remaining five came off the bench. The Tunisian international didn’t even play a full 90 minutes, with his lengthiest cameo being 53 minutes against Real Sociedad on March 2.
Hannibal among a host of players INEOS want to move on
All signs point towards Hannibal leaving in the coming weeks, although it remains to be seen where he’ll end up after such a torrid campaign. He rebuffed interest from Everton in the winter in favour of making the switch to Sevilla – a decision that he undoubtedly rues given the top-flight experience he’d have under his belt had he accepted Sean Dyche’s proposal.
