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Carrick must quickly fix this glaring flaw every opponent keeps exploiting – Sky Sports
Aug 28 2026 14:48 · By onefootball.com · 3 Reads
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Crystal Palace, Aston Villa, Brentford and Nottingham Forest all fell to Manchester United towards the end of last season.
However, while the Red Devils won those matches, one flaw kept recurring: United gave away cheap goals, conceding from corners.
While the hope was that this bad habit had been left behind last season, it resurfaced last weekend in United’s league opener.
Set pieces the major undoing in the loss to Hull
The two goals Hull City scored to stun United both stemmed from poor set-piece defending: one from a corner rebound, the other from a set piece.
In both situations, the defence failed to sniff out the danger and control the situation.
Indeed, according to Sky Sports, the 20-time English champions have conceded 12 goals from corners since the start of last season. They are the worst in the Premier League, with only Leeds matching them on that struggle.
Some may argue this issue dates back to when the team struggled under former United head coach Ruben Amorim, but Sky Sports are quick to point out:
“The fact they have the third-highest percentage of goals conceded from set-pieces in the Premier League since his first game in charge, though, underlines the extent of the issue.”
Last season, United got away with conceding such “preventable” goals, particularly under Michael Carrick, and still won.
However, the defeat to Hull proved they cannot keep giving away goals and hoping they will turn things around.
A weakness teams will look to exploit
Teams have clearly picked up on United’s struggles to defend set pieces, and Hull boss Sergej Jakirović, as per MEN, openly admitted as much:
“We tried something on Friday, so we had some plan there to try to punish them,” he said.
“How they’re standing, especially on the wide free-kicks to make some blocks there, and then we saw Nobel and Semi score.”
Ipswich will now look to exploit this same weakness on Sunday.
Hopefully, this week’s training has focused on how they defend set pieces better.
That said, it was suggested a while back that set-piece coach Andreas Georgson would be brought back to the club from Tottenham Hotspur to handle set pieces. That has not happened, and whether it will remains a mystery.