Sevilla make bizarre U-turn on Man Utd loanee Hannibal Mejbri after strange manager claim

Hannibal Mejbri has been included in Sevilla's matchday squad for Sunday's game against Osasuna despite manager Quique Sanchez Flores insisting he would not be involved.

Flores claimed on Saturday that Manchester United loanee Hannibal would not be selected for the foreseeable future, following a difficult start to his loan spell with the Spanish side. He made his debut in a 5-1 defeat to Girona last weekend and was left out of the midweek Copa del Rey fixture against Atletico Madrid.

"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," 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."

But upon confirming their 22-man squad for Sunday's home game against Osasuna, Flores seemingly had a change of heart with Hannibal's name among the list. It is unclear what forced the manager to change his mind.

Sevilla do have an option to make Hannibal's loan spell permanent in the summer for a fee believed to be around £17million. However, it is currently not likely that will be activated unless things can change for the midfielder in Spain.