Manchester United began the new Premier League season with a damaging 2-0 defeat away to Hull City, a result that quickly turned their opener into a sobering test of how much progress has really been made.<\/p>\n
Michael Carrick responded at halftime by sending on Marcus Rashford, but the introduction of United\u2019s new No.9 did not alter the flow of the contest. Hull remained the sharper side for long stretches, while Konstantinos Tzolakis was rarely required to intervene as United struggled to create clear openings.<\/p>\n
The first half effectively decided the match. Hull produced a five-minute spell of pressure that exposed United\u2019s defensive weaknesses, with repeated deliveries into the area forcing several saves from Senne Lammens before Ajayi converted after Oli McBurnie\u2019s effort was kept out. Crosses continued to trouble United, just as they had in the final preseason loss to Ruben Amorim\u2019s AC Milan, and Hull showed no hesitation in targeting that area again.<\/p>\n
United\u2019s centre-backs, Harry Maguire and Ayden Heaven, were unable to deal consistently with the service coming into the box, while another set-piece moment before the interval ended with Mendy heading Hull further ahead. The problem was not only the defending in those moments, but the lack of structure around United\u2019s penalty area.<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s summer work has focused heavily on midfield additions, yet this match raised fresh doubts about the balance of the defence. Hull were not especially dominant in possession, but they were efficient and organised, and United never looked capable of recovering once the damage had been done.<\/p>\n
The performance left United with a stark opening-day reminder that last season\u2019s resurgence offers little protection if the same weaknesses continue to surface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United\u2019s season began with a 2-0 defeat at Hull, exposing familiar defensive flaws on opening day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,172],"tags":[1836,1981],"class_list":["post-18686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-gameweek-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}