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Manchester United head coach Michael Carrick mounted a strong defence of Patrick Dorgu after the player’s difficult outing in the season opener against Hull City.

Dorgu’s performance reflected a disappointing afternoon for United, who were beaten by newly promoted Hull at the MKM Stadium.

United were second best for large spells of the match and seldom looked likely to cause serious problems for the Tigers.

Carrick’s men struggled to deal with Hull’s aggressive physical approach, and that weakness was punished clinically by the two goalscorers, Semi Ajayi and Nobel Mendy.

With the Red Devils trailing by two goals at half-time, Carrick withdrew Dorgu and sent on Marcus Rashford in his place.

Speaking after the match, Carrick moved quickly to protect Dorgu from criticism, making it clear that the Denmark international was not responsible for the team’s failings.

Carrick told reporters when asked whether he would need to put an arm around Dorgu after taking him off at the break, “Pat’s fine, we love him to bits. He’s a fantastic player, Pat. He’s a great character.”

“He’s a big part of what we do, and he will be. So it was just one of those decisions. It’s nothing personal. Sometimes you’ve just got to make them, you know, trying to do something a little bit different.”

The United boss continued, “We changed things around a little bit in the second half and we kept trying to find a different way, a little bit of finding the spark. It happens, it does happen, it has happened before. We’ve just got to keep finding those solutions, you know, and a little bit is that Ben’s been out for quite some time and hasn’t trained an awful lot.”

“So there are kind of little bits of reasons for it. Bryan [Mbeumo] has been really good for a lot of pre-season and was one of our better players again today.”

Carrick added on the display, “You know, we came here to win as we do in 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 got to soak it up and come back stronger. It’s not a time to dissect it as such. I think we’ve been pretty good [at defending set-pieces] over a period of time.”

“Today they’ve obviously scored two in different ways, you know, so I guess why that’s highlighted, I understand that. But it happens. Sometimes it happens in football, but we don’t accept it, but it happens and we’ve got to understand why.”

“We haven’t lost many games in six, seven months. So again, I get it, we’ve lost today, and I understand there are questions to be asked, but it doesn’t mean everything’s wrong because we’ve lost a game. We’ve done a lot of good things and we did some good things today, but it gets lost, and I understand it’ll get lost, but it doesn’t get lost from our point of view.”

“So yeah, there’s definitely issues playing against different systems, you know.”

“So we’ve got to find the answers for that, but it’s just because we lost one game doesn’t mean that everything needs to be dissected and it’s wrong from our point of view. I understand from others, it happens, and that’s how it is.”

Asked why his side appeared so passive against Hull, he said, “That doesn’t mean you’re passive just because you get beat. It’s just, you know, the result’s the result. So we accept it, you know? We got beat, we’re hurting.”

“It’s not a nice feeling at all. It doesn’t mean it’s going to change the direction of how we’re going as a team or as a football club, you know? It’s one game and results can happen in football. We all understand that. It’s not nice when they do, but it does happen. We can be better, we will be better. There’s things we can be much better at.”

“There’s things that were actually alright that get lost in the game because you get beat. I understand that as well.”

United are back in action next Sunday when they welcome Ipswich Town to Old Trafford.