Hull City, by their own admission, watched Manchester United three times in the lead up to this lunchtime clash.

Of those three scouting missions - which included a 4-2 drubbing at the hands of AC Milan - only one saw them view it live. That was all Sergej Jakirovic and his staff needed to devise a plan that would ruthlessly expose the flaws in United's plan.

What they found, particularly against Milan, was a system which left huge gaps in the full-back areas to exploit. Set pieces were also viewed as a major area of weakness.

It is a system that pushed Luke Shaw extremely high up the pitch from left back. It is a system that pushed Patrick Dorgu into a clogged central area. A system that asked too much from Noussair Mazraoui. A system that had Matheus Cunha in a floating central role. A system that delivered, in captain Bruno Fernandes' opinion, the same, old mistakes.

'We watched Man United three times, one time live. We saw their problems and then we tried to use this today,' the Hull City boss explained.

'Everything that we agreed on in the meeting this week, everything that we tried to practice went as planned, and this is the result in the end. I'm very, very pleased with them.'

There is credence to what Michael Carrick says. This is one game. One defeat. A bad one, yes. But one defeat. You don't abandon an entire methodology after one bad performance.

But even the most optimistic United fan would concede that pace, or lack thereof, and predictability are two areas of genuine concern for a United side that have too much talent to be this lacklustre on a regular basis.

Take the two goals. The first finished off by Semi Ajayi but a goal borne out of Regan Slater's corner, flicked on by John Egan and the chaos that followed, thanks to Oli McBurnie brushing off Ayden Heaven, left United all at sea.

In that sequence, Harry Maguire ended up tangled with his own team-mate in Mazraoui as Ajayi peeled off them both. Neither will reflect on that with any satisfaction.

The second, headed in by Nobel Mendy, saw Slater's wide free kick punish another area that, 24 hours out from the game, a pow-wow on Hull City's training ground explained would be another notable area of weakness for Carrick's side.

Hull City's coaches held court at the training ground on Friday to map out to players exactly how to expose Manchester United from set-pieces.

Particularly, it would later be explained, from wide free kicks.

So here, when Regan Slater lined up a free kick that was headed in by Nobel Mendy to make it 2-0 and land the knockout blow on a hapless Manchester United side that left battered and bruised.

'I don't have a coach for set pieces,' Jakirovic beamed. 'So Marko (Salatovic), Anđelo (Roguljic), my assistant coach, and owner, they are doing this. This is our secret!

'We tried something on Friday, so we had some plan there to try to punish them, how they're standing, especially on the wide free kicks to make some blocks there, and then we saw Nobel and Semi score.'

Even outside of set pieces, make no mistake that Hull City bullied Manchester United here. They were quicker, more inventive, braver in and out of possession, and they ultimately had the better game-plan.

'Man United is coming very high with (left back) Luke Shaw,' explained Jakirovic. 'Also, they're trying to overload midfield.

'That was our main task, to close these gaps between the lines.

'When we steal the ball, we are very vertical, very quick. Also, in those transitions, we tried to switch the side because our wing-backs are completely alone.

'We have numbers in the box. We had, I think, two very good chances after this. Also, we didn't allow any one-to-one or 100 per cent chance for Man United.'

They exploited all of that. None of the changes, which included Marcus Rashford's first competitive appearance for United since 2024, nor bringing on an orthodox centre forward in Sesko, improved things.

There were many green shoots of life for United in pre-season: a press that looked capable of suffocating the very best teams, rotations that suggested there would not be an over-reliance on the magic of Bruno Fernandes, and a dominance against the likes of Atletico Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain that suggested a shift was incoming.

Leny Yoro mentioned a possible title tilt. Carrick, albeit optimistic, looked to keep things in check during the summer but did go as far as to say his side has the capability to 'do something special'.

Yes, there is Amad to come back into the group. There's Lisandro Martinez and Matthijs de Ligt. There's Mason Mount. Benjamin Sesko only came off the bench here. Carlos Baleba will arrive in a £70million deal and a left back is expected.

Director of football Jason Wilcox and chief executive Omar Berrada could only watch on and wince as they watched this horror showing unfold. More players may yet come through the door amid interest in Joshua Zirkzee between now and the deadline.

But here was the blueprint to beat Manchester United for anyone keen enough to read it.

If one set-piece training session and one live scouting mission is all it takes to unpick an entire tactical game-plan, perhaps keeping calm and carrying on may not be the best course of action after all.