Perhaps many Man United players still think the match against Hull City is within the framework of a summer friendly. Bruno Fernandes and his teammates' approach did not show that it was the opening performance of the Premier League campaign. The "Red Devils"' play was slow, lacked penetrations into the penalty area and rarely had decisive handling situations.
In their return to the Premier League after nearly a decade of absence, Hull City won 50 tackles (both in the air and on the ground), compared to only 35 for Man United. That is the statistic that most clearly shows the contrast in the fighting spirit of the two teams at the MKM stadium last weekend.
Man United lost to Hull City when the opponent used a 5-defender formation with 2 wingers who were very willing to push high and back to support when needed. Looking back at the past time to see, opponents who want to beat Man United only need to apply this method to have a high percentage of doing so.
Leeds United (in April), Wrexham and AC Milan (pre-season) all used this playing style and both won against Michael Carrick's team.
After the match, captain Sergej Jakirovic explained how Hull City played with this formation. He said that Man United often let Luke Shaw push high and take advantage of a large number of players in midfield. Therefore, Hull will play focused on the 2 wings with high speed, few touches and use direct play to win the dispute. Clearly, the opponent does not need to study too much but knows how to neutralize Man United's playing style, this is the problem.
The Red Devils are somewhat rudimentary in preparing to respond to situations encountered. This is shown through Bruno Fernandes' interview after the match. He said that Hull City often plays with a 4-defender formation but suddenly turns it into 5 when facing Man United.
Both of Man United's goals conceded came from set pieces. This is a deadly weakness of the "Red Devils" on a day when goalkeeper Senne Lammens tried his best. Jakirovic shared that he and his students practiced many set pieces on Friday (the day before the match), especially the "blocking" situations. When asked in more detail what Hull City did, the captain of the new team said it was a secret.
And when observing the situations where Man United conceded goals from a television camera angle, it is easy to see that Man United players often tend to move towards the near post in set pieces. Therefore, Hull City has found ways to take advantage of this by arranging people in the far post area.
One of the things that made Man United's defeat even more humiliating was that Hull City's starting force in the recent match had up to 8 players who had only played in the Championship. Remember that last season, this force along with the "Tigers" only escaped relegation thanks to sub-indices. This statistic shows that the level of Hull City's starting players in the recent match was not high but they still defeated Man United easily.
After the match, Carrick shared that he still maintained a calm attitude towards the players because such a defeat is not a disaster to the point of shouting something too much in the dressing room. Carrick understands that the players are also very sad and what needs to be done is to revive their spirits, change and upgrade their playing style instead of making the situation more bleak.
The opening match of the season losing miserably to the new team is a scar that is difficult to heal for Man United this season. However, there are still 37 rounds ahead for Carrick's team to adjust the coordinates so that the train does not derail.
The Premier League is becoming more and more fierce, this defeat cannot be said to not affect the overall situation because every point is precious. However, instead of making everything gloomy, the whole team needs to boost their morale to aim for the reception of Ipswich this weekend.
