Loss to Hull City once again shows Man United's problem against five-man defences

Well, that was some way to put a dampener on all the excitement and positive vibes that were emanating from everyone with a Manchester United persuasion. 

All the good energy entering into the 2026/27 season was dissipated with a damaging opening-day 0–2 defeat to newly promoted Hull City, who marked a triumphant return to the Premier League after a decade.

Michael Carrick had spoken about not taking games against promoted sides lightly in the lead-up to the season-opener, but even he in his wildest dreams could not have imagined Hull City running circles around his expensively assembled Man United side, let alone winning so comfortably. 

Now, it is safe to say that there will be blatant over-reactions to the defeat, but the fact remains that this is still the first game of a 38-game Premier League campaign. However, that the Red Devils had to win this game is also a fact. Such is the overwhelming gulf between the two sides that Opta gave Carrick’s side an astounding 68.9% chance of winning this game.

But what unfolded at the MKM Stadium painted a damning picture. Hull City pulled a fast one on Man United by playing a 5-4-1 after playing the entire pre-season with a back four. And that move reaped massive dividends as they managed to stifle the United attack by starving them of any space whatsoever.

On top of that, Hull also took advantage of United’s positioning in set pieces, with both their goals coming from excellently executed dead-ball routines. Put plainly, the Tigers were deserving of their victory and those valuable three points to kickstart their first season back in the Premiership.

But what about Man United? On paper, the xG story seems to tilt towards Carrick’s side: they outperformed Hull City on that metric (1.83 to Hull’s 1.01). But that only tells half the story: of the 21 shots United attempted in the game, 16 generated a harrowing xG of less than 0.1, with their most notable chance coming as late as the 78th minute, when Bryan Mbeumo forced a sharp save from debutant Konstantinos Tzolakis.

The other chances of fair quality fell to Noussair Mazraoui and Patrick Dorgu, who have a combined total of just 16 top-flight goals between them; expecting them to finish these chances is asking a little too much of them, given one of them is principally a fullback and the other, while also being a fullback, only started playing as a winger from January.

Hull’s ploy of playing a back-five meant that their extra bodies successfully managed to crowd out United’s attackers every time they had the ball. They conceded eight shots in the danger area, but five of those were headers, efforts which pose an added level of difficulty to convert.

United’s failure against Hull City brings to light the side’s frequent inability to break down back-five defences. Leeds United managed to get their first-ever victory against them at Old Trafford by playing a 3-4-3 and repeated the same tactic again in pre-season to earn a 1–1 draw. Even AC Milan, under erstwhile United coach Ruben Amorim, used the five-man formation and convincingly beat them 4-2.

All in all, Manchester United’s last six Premier League games against sides playing a three- or five-man defence have resulted in only one win. While the sample size is still comparatively small, it is safe enough to say that there is a problem when it comes to playing sides with this formation.

Other teams will have definitely taken note of this performance and will be chalking up plans accordingly. It is now up to Carrick, his coaching staff, and his players to find a way to rectify this problem and find a viable and sustainable solution to counter it before it turns into a malaise.