Michael Carrick snapped at a reporter’s ‘ridiculous’ opening question after Manchester United’s shock defeat by Hull City on Saturday.

The United manager was affronted when asked if his players had lost against the newly promoted club due to a lack of ‘passion’.

United’s Premier League season got off to a nightmare start as goals from Semi Ajayi and Nobel Mendy – both stemming from set-pieces – put them to the sword in Yorkshire. 

Carrick was interviewed afterwards by Viaplay broadcaster Jan Age Fjortoft, the Norwegian who played for Swindon, Middlesbrough, Sheffield United, and Barnsley in the 1990s.

‘Would you accept that there was a lack of passion in the first half?’ asked Fjortoft. 

‘Oh come on, that’s ridiculous,’ Carrick hit back.

Michael Carrick said it was ‘ridiculous’ to suggest his Manchester United team lacked passion in their 2-0 defeat by Hull City 

He was vexed by the question posed by Viaplay reporter and former play Jan Age Fjortoft 

‘That’s not how you would assess it?’ asked Fjortoft. 

Carrick replied: ‘Come on, you played football, you understand, that’s a ridiculous thing to say. Just because you got beat doesn’t mean you don’t care about it.’ 

Fjortoft said: ‘I’m not saying that you didn’t care about it. 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?’ 

‘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 said: ‘Is it these duels? Is that what you mean? That these two duels were the goals? Because they had chances. There were consequences there from the game that you could see that they would get at you.’

‘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. You know, 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. 

Any title talk for Manchester United was quickly dulled by their lacklustre performance 

Semi Ajayi gave the hosts the lead after a kerfuffle in the box in the 17th minute 

Nobel Mendy made matters worse for United when he added Hull’s second after 38 minutes

Marcus Rashford came off the bench wearing the number nine shirt but was unable to change the match

‘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.’

It was a humbling experience for Carrick, who lost just two of his 17 matches in interim charge of United.

They started with a new-look midfield in the form of Youri Tielemans and Andrey Santos, but neither was overly convincing and the former even got nutmegged at one point.

Carrick did a fantastic job to lead United into the Champions League and the hope is that they will imitate that. Carlos Baleba is soon arriving from Brighton for £70million to further bolster their midfield. 

Reporting on the match at the MKM Stadium, Daily Mail Sport’s Manchester United reporter Chris Wheeler called any talk of a title challenge a ‘joke’.

Wheeler wrote: ‘Even in his worst nightmares, Carrick couldn’t have foreseen this: an opening-day humiliation at the hands of a team that sneaked into the Premier League via the Championship play-offs in May, and have been prepped for their return to the top-flight with a summer spend of just £70million on 12 players – the same as it is costing United to sign Carlos Baleba from Brighton.’

He added: ‘After a summer of guarded optimism over the signing of Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans, the new midfield failed to launch.

‘Both players were replaced midway through the second half on their Premier League debuts with United two goals down, having been eclipsed by Matt Crooks and Slater, a mere £50,000 signing from Sheffield United in 2022.

‘Instead, it was the business that United haven’t done that becomes the main talking point. The new striker that hasn’t arrived. The missing defensive cover for Luke Shaw. Baleba, the third midfield signing, coming in too late to start the season.

Considering Carrick only lost two of his 17 games after taking over in January, this was a serious setback. He talked in the week about touting United as title contenders being ‘a jump’. On this evidence, it’s a joke.’