Loss to Hull City once again shows Man United's problem against 5-man defence

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 Premier League season was dissipated with what was a damaging opening-day 0-2 defeat to newly-promoted Hull City in what was a triumphant return to the Premier League for the Tigers after a decade.

Michael Carrick had spoken about not taking games against promoted sides lightly in the press conference, but even he in wildest dreams did not imagine 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, and the fact does remain that this is still the first game of a 38-game Premier League season, but the matter of fact still remains that the Red Devils had to win this game. 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 United by playing a 5-4-1, after playing the entire pre-season with a back-4. And that move reaped massive dividends as they managed to stifle the Man United attack by starving them of any space whatsoever.

Add to that, Hull also took advantage of United’s positioning in set-pieces, with both their goals coming from excellently-executed set-piece routines. Put plainly, the Tigers were deserving of their victory and those valuable 3 points to kickstart their first season back in the Premiership.

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

The other chances of fair quality fell to Noussair Mazraoui and Patrick Dorgu, who have a combined total of just 16 career goals between them, and expecting them to finish these chances is asking a little too much of them, with one a full-back and the other only playing as a winger from January.

Hull’s ploy of playing a back 5 meant that their extra bodies successfully managed to crowd out United’s attackers every time they had the ball. They conceded 8 shots in their danger area, but 5 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 sides who play a back-5. Leeds United managed to get their first-ever victory against them in Old Trafford by playing a 3-4-3, and repeating the same tactic again in pre-season got them a 1-1 draw. AC Milan under erstwhile United coach Ruben Amorim also used the 5-man formation and convincingly beat United 4-2.

All in all, Manchester United have played 6 Premier League games against sides playing a 3or 5-man defense, managing to win only 1 game in the process. While the sample size of games played 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 have started chalking plans to this effect. It is up to Carrick, his coaching staff and his players to find a way to rectify this and find a viable and sustainable solution to counter this problem before it turns into a malaise.