Carrick Calls Manchester United's Opening Fixtures 'Ridiculous'

Michael Carrick is having none of it.

Suggestions that Manchester United have been handed a gentle opening to the Premier League season drew a sharp response from the head coach, who branded the idea “ridiculous” as he prepared his side for Saturday’s trip to Hull.

United begin away to the Championship play-off winners before hosting Ipswich, another newly promoted side, in their first Old Trafford fixture on 30 August. On paper, it looks kind. In the dressing room, Carrick insists, it feels anything but.

A third-place finish last season and his subsequent permanent appointment have raised expectations that United should charge out of the blocks and turn that momentum into an early points haul. The fixture list has only fuelled that narrative.

Carrick shut it down.

“A newly promoted team away from home is a tough game,” he said, drawing on his years of experience in similar scenarios. He knows what awaits at Hull: a fired‑up crowd, a team with something to prove, and an opponent treating the visit of Manchester United as a statement occasion.

“I've been involved in them in the past so I'm fully aware of what's coming at us on Saturday and what we've got to be ready for,” he added.

That, for Carrick, is the reality. Not the talk of a soft launch.

“It's not favourable. It's an easy thing to throw out there but it's pretty ridiculous. I'm not taking it that way at all.”

United may carry the form and the expectation. Their manager is determined they don’t carry complacency into a season that will judge whether last year’s progress was a platform – or a peak.