Sevilla will refrain from selecting Hannibal Mejbri, currently on loan from Manchester United, due to reported training ground conflict with a teammate.
The 21-year-old, who joined Sevilla on a loan deal until the season’s end, also has the option for a permanent move included in the agreement.
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Having debuted off the bench in the 5-1 loss to Girona last weekend, Mejbri was excluded from the squad for the midweek Copa del Rey clash against Atletico Madrid.
Despite Sevilla’s upcoming match against Osasuna on Sunday, the Tunisia international will not participate. Manager Quique Sanchez Flores issued a cryptic statement on Saturday, stating that the midfielder requires time “to understand that he is at Sevilla and what it means.”
‘After being with him, talking to him and having seen his first minutes in Girona, we are going to give him the necessary space to understand where he is, that he is at Sevilla and what it means,’ manager Flores said.
‘He has to know where he is and we want to see him. We have spoken with him and we believe that he has to have some time to learn, we wanted to give him space, time for him to see things from the outside and then he will return to the squad.
‘In the end they are kids who have come and suddenly land in a huge club like Sevilla in circumstances of maximum demand. And they need a bit of location. And that location may be seen better from the outside than from the inside. You should take a step to understand what we want.
‘Let’s see if the boy applies himself and I think that in the end he will understand perfectly what we want.’
Rumors from Mundo Deportivo suggest that Mejbri was engaged in a training session confrontation with teammate Mariano this week, extending into the locker room.
Mariano, absent from the squad in the midweek cup defeat against Atletico, will also not participate against Osasuna today. Flores hints at his absence being attributed to a fitness concern.
‘Mariano is not going to go today either, he has physical problems. He is a boy who we see in training with difficulties moving, to do the things we want,’ Flores said.
‘He came to talk to us this week and told us that he did not have a good feeling , who was not feeling well. He is a boy who is not one hundred percent and we cannot have him called up.’
