Hull City 2-0 Manchester United: Tigers stun Carrick’s side on Premier League return

There is no more reliable place in the English game for an opening-day ambush than a newly promoted club with everything to prove, and Hull City delivered the first real shock of the new Premier League season. The Tigers brushed past Manchester United 2-0 on the banks of the Humber, earning their first ever top-flight victory over the 20-time champions and serving Michael Carrick a pointed reminder that reputations count for nothing come August.

Two first-half goals did the damage and both arrived from the kind of dead-ball chaos Hull had clearly worked on all week. Semi Ajayi swept home the rebound after Senne Lammens had beaten out a fierce near-post drive from Oli McBurnie, before summer recruit Nobel Mendy rose to nod in Regan Slater’s whipped free-kick, outmuscling a flat-footed rearguard that never looked organised enough to deal with the delivery.

For a side widely tipped to go straight back down, it was a statement of rare conviction. Hull only reached the play-offs on the last day of the campaign before beating Middlesbrough in the final, becoming the first club to win promotion from sixth since Blackpool in 2010. Their manager, Sergej Jakirovic, the first Bosnian-Herzegovinian to take charge of a Premier League club, had spent the week bristling at the mockery aimed at his squad, and his players repaid the belief with a performance that demanded respect rather than giggles.

Carrick tries to keep the lid on

United’s head coach, unbeaten in public composure if not in private sentiment, insisted the result should not be dissected beyond its merits as a single bad afternoon. He pointed to the good work his side did manage, even as he conceded the evening had stung far more than his calm exterior suggested. His was a familiar refrain from someone who endured a similar embarrassment as a player at Burnley in 2009, and he knows the inquest will hum regardless.

Wayne Rooney, watching as a pundit, argued United must learn to make opponents fear them again, calling the press too passive. Alan Shearer went further, suggesting a lack of sharpness rather than tactics, before Bruno Fernandes pointed a finger at the same lack of zip, complaining his side surrendered too much of the ball and too much time on it. Luke Shaw, for his part, was blunt about the basics, admitting the goals conceded from set-pieces were simply not good enough. Marcus Rashford’s introduction at half-time, his first appearance for the club since December 2024, could not turn the tide.

Rooney’s verdict, delivered on the BBC’s Match of the Day, carried added weight given his lifelong association with the club, but Carrick is not a man for theatrics. His message was one of perspective: one defeat, however painful, is not a season. The evidence of the afternoon, though, is that United remain vulnerable to exactly the kind of organised, direct outfit Hull were.

The Tigers can savour a result that rewrites the record books. For Carrick, the real work begins at home, where the next 37 games will decide whether this was a blip on the Humber or the first crack in a campaign that promised so much.

Reporting via BBC Sport.