Michael Carrick, the Manchester United manager, snapped at a "ridiculous" opening question from a television reporter after his side suffered a shock 2-0 defeat by newly promoted Hull City in their opening Premier League fixture on Saturday.
Carrick was interviewed after the game by Viaplay broadcaster Jan Age Fjortoft, who asked whether the United players had shown a lack of "passion" in the first half. "Oh come on, that's ridiculous," Carrick hit back.
Fjortoft, a Norwegian who played for Swindon Town, Middlesbrough, Sheffield United and Barnsley in the 1990s, pressed the point. "That's not how you would assess it?" he asked.
"Come on, you played football, you understand, that's a ridiculous thing to say," Carrick replied. "Just because you got beat doesn't mean you don't care about it."
Fjortoft presses Carrick on Hull's approach
Fjortoft clarified he was not suggesting United's players did not care. "If you look at it, they came with passion, that's what I mean. I understand that you care about it, but would you accept that they took you on that front, so to say?" he said.
"No, no. Their two goals came from set plays. Other than that, we had opportunities," Carrick said. "That was where the game was. I don't think it was passion or anything to do with that. I think it was just their moment that made the difference in the game."
Fjortoft asked whether Carrick meant the goals came from individual duels rather than a lack of effort, noting that Hull had created chances suggesting United were there for the taking.
"It's a game of football, it's a Premier League game," Carrick replied. "It's their first game at home, and we've seen it many times before. I said it before the game because it was always going to be a tough game. And set-plays, yeah, that's it. We've been decent over a period of time at dealing with them, and today we didn't."
Carrick added: "We can look into that, we can dissect it. We certainly won't get carried away with the positives or the negatives. We never do. So I think we can stay calm and understand what we need to get better at."
Ajayi and Mendy punish United from set-pieces
Hull, playing at the MKM Stadium in front of their home supporters for the first time since returning to the Premier League, took the lead through Semi Ajayi in the 17th minute after a scramble in the box. Nobel Mendy doubled the lead in the 38th minute to put United two goals down at the break.
Marcus Rashford came off the bench wearing the number nine shirt but could not change the outcome.
The defeat was a rare setback for Carrick, who lost just two of his 17 matches in interim charge of United and led the club into the Champions League. United had started the match with a reshaped midfield of Youri Tielemans and Andrey Santos, both making their Premier League debuts, but neither player convinced and Tielemans was nutmegged at one point during the game. Both were substituted midway through the second half.
Wheeler: title talk 'a joke'
Writing for the Daily Mail from the MKM Stadium, United reporter Chris Wheeler dismissed any talk of a title challenge as "a joke". He said the defeat was an opening-day humiliation at the hands of a team that had reached the Premier League via the Championship play-offs in May and had been prepared for the top flight with a summer outlay of just £70 million on 12 players, the same fee United are paying Brighton & Hove Albion alone for the signing of Carlos Baleba.
Wheeler wrote that Tielemans and Santos, signed amid guarded optimism over the summer, had been eclipsed on their debuts by Hull's Matt Crooks and Slater, who joined the club from Sheffield United in 2022 for a fee of £50,000. He added that the business United had not done, including a new striker and defensive cover for Luke Shaw, had become the main talking point, with Baleba, United's third midfield signing, arriving too late to start the season.
Carrick had said during the week that describing United as title contenders would be "a jump". Wheeler wrote that, on the evidence of the Hull defeat, "it's a joke".
