{"id":43510,"date":"2026-08-22T19:22:04","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T17:22:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=43510"},"modified":"2026-08-22T19:22:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T17:22:04","slug":"hull-stun-manchester-united-2-0-on-premier-league-return","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/hull-stun-manchester-united-2-0-on-premier-league-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Hull stun Manchester United 2-0 on Premier League return"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Hull City marked their \u200breturn to the Premier League after a nine-year absence with a deserved 2-0 victory over \u200cManchester United on Saturday, puncturing the optimism surrounding Michael Carrick&#8217;s side after last season&#8217;s revival.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;It&#8217;s one game,&#8221; Carrick told\u00a0<em><span class=\"x_spanWithBackgroundColor\">TNT Sports<\/span><\/em>. &#8220;It&#8217;s the first game of the season, so it&#8217;s disappointing enough, and it hurts, of course it does.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;But it doesn&#8217;t \u200bchange direction all of a sudden, the whole course of what direction the team&#8217;s going in, \u200bor the football club, and we&#8217;ll stay calm and stay in the bubble \u2060and focus on next week.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The promoted side threatened United from the start and took the lead \u200bin the 17th minute when Semi Ajayi turned home a rebound after Oli McBurnie&#8217;s effort from a corner \u200bhad been parried by goalkeeper Senne Lammens.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Hull&#8217;s dominance at set-pieces paid off again seven minutes before halftime. Regan Slater curled a free kick into the area and Nobel Mendy rose high to power a header beyond Lammens and send the \u200bMKM Stadium into raptures in their first league victory over United in 52 years.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;It was amazing,&#8221; Ajayi told<em> \u200b<span class=\"x_spanWithBackgroundColor\">TNT<\/span><\/em>. &#8220;It capped off a great start that we had had. I was buzzing to get the goal that got us \u200con \u2060our way. We&#8217;re not focused on outside noise, we back ourselves to do well.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>United, who had never lost to a newly promoted side in a season opener, struggled to respond. Marcus Rashford, making his first appearance for the club since December 2024, showed flashes of promise as a second-half substitute, but Carrick&#8217;s team \u200bfound it difficult to create \u200bclear chances.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;We know in \u2060the Premier League these types of away grounds are difficult to play against,&#8221; United captain Bruno Fernandes said. &#8220;You need to match their intensity and aggression. The \u200btwo set-pieces ended up costing us the game today.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>United had arrived with high \u200bexpectations. Carrick \u2060had galvanised a confidence-starved squad last season after replacing Ruben Amorim in January, leading them to a third-place finish.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Bryan Mbeumo had United&#8217;s best chance in the 78th minute, but his shot from a central area was saved \u2060by Konstantinos \u200bTzolakis, who otherwise enjoyed a quiet afternoon as Hull&#8217;s defence \u200bcomfortably kept the visitors at bay.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;We understand the (fans&#8217;) frustration,&#8221; Fernandes said. &#8220;Every season at the start we want to compete and win every \u200bgame but we need the fans on our side.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":43512,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-43510","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"United had arrived with high \u200bexpectations.","published_date":"","news_description":"United had arrived with high \u200bexpectations.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43511,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43510\/revisions\/43511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=43510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}