Photocredit: Manutd.com
On Monday, Manchester United's U23 side played their 10th match of the season in what turned out to be a relatively straightforward 4-1 win on the road at Middlebrough. United sit second in group 2 with 25 points through those 10 games, putting them just 3 behind West Ham for the lead. Several things stood out about this game in particular though.
One thing that stood out is that the only player who actually gets first team minutes at all that took part in the match was Tahith Chong. He stood out, scoring 2 goals in the match while captaining the side. The other regulars all were with the first team ahead of the showdown with Partizan Belgrade on Thursday. This suggests we will likely see James Garner, Brandon Williams, and Mason Greenwood in the Partizan match. Sadly, Angel Gomes is out with injury. However, we did finally get to see the young 16 year old Hannibal Mejbri come off the bench in the outing. He doesn't turn 17 until January 20th. He made just his second appearance for the U23 outfit and hopefully will make more. Mejbri was the top prospect United signed from Monaco over the summer that you may have only seen in a paper real quick. But only the top prospects, like Greenwood last year, make the jump to U23 at just 16 years of age. He'll likely go back down to U18 level for this weekend with the U23s not playing again until Nov. 22.
Mejbri has also been playing minutes for France's U17 side in Euro qualifying.
