HULL, England — Manchester United head coach Michael Carrick insisted it was not the time to panic despite watching his team fall to a humbling 2-0 defeat to newly-promoted Hull City on Saturday.
United conceded twice from set-pieces in the first half as Hull recorded their first league win over United since 1974.
Carrick said afterwards that the opening day result “hurt” — but said it wasn’t the time to make rash decisions with a little over a week to go before the end of the transfer window.
“There’s a difference how you say calmness, you know?” said Carrick
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“I’m talking to you [in the news conference] quite calmly, but I’m not exactly calm inside and enjoying the day, you know? So there’s a big difference.
“I played here for a long time. You don’t get to play here for a long time without just going day by day, the results, the ups and downs, but you just carry on as normal. It’s 100% not that, and trust me, it’s not that.
“It just doesn’t mean that we all have to shout and scream and come out and create some chaos just because of it, you know? Inside we’re hurting, the boys know, and we need to get better. But the calmness doesn’t mean that there’s no emotion in it, for sure.”
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United only managed five shots on target during the game as Hull made a winning start to their first Premier League campaign for nine years.
Semi Ajayi scored first from a corner before Nobel Mendy added a second from a free-kick into United’s penalty area.
“It’s hugely disappointing, of course it is,” said Carrick.
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“You know, we came here to win like we do any game. So to not take anything away is hugely disappointing. It’s not more than that. It’s not less than that. It’s just one game that we’re disappointed we haven’t won. So we’ve got to soak it up and come back stronger.”
Afterwards, Hull manager Sergej Jakirovic put the set-piece success down to a specific plan formulated in training on Friday, although the Bosnian refused to give away any details.
“It’s a secret,” said Jakirovic.
“We tried something on Friday. We had some plans there to try to punish them, how they stand at a wide free-kick.”
