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The last time Hull City met Manchester United in the league before the Red Devils’ surprise 2-0 defeat on Saturday 22 August was on 1 February 2017, as Hull goalkeeper Eldin Jakupovic made six saves in a goalless draw at Old Trafford. Hull went down that spring.
Three men from that night are still in the fixture, and all three are on United’s side. Michael Carrick captained the side from midfield and came off at half time. He is now their head coach. Marcus Rashford played the full 90 minutes for United and is back in the squad after loan spells at Aston Villa and then Barcelona. Harry Maguire started that night for Hull. He is a United defender now.
Nobody in Hull’s current squad was there. In nine years, every name on Hull’s side of the team sheet has changed.
Nine years is long enough to lose track of a club, and this fixture was closely followed in Zimbabwe, where Premier Bet football betting odds will be running on Premier Bet’s site.
Hull’s nine years
That was Hull’s third Premier League relegation in eight years, and the fall did not stop there. They went down again, spent one season in League One and won it in 2020-21, and as recently as 2024-25 stayed in the Championship on goal difference alone.
Sergej Jakirovic arrived from Kayserispor as Hull’s head coach in the summer of 2025 and took a side that had only just avoided relegation and won promotion with it in a single season. Hull finished sixth on 73 points, then beat Millwall in the semi-finals and Middlesbrough 1-0 in the play-off final at Wembley on 23 May, Oli McBurnie tapping in the winner in the 95th minute.
Hull’s McBurnie told Sky Sports: “We knew we were going to be right up against it, but we felt we’d have one chance and it was written for me to get it.”
United’s nine years
The constant change at United since then is easiest to tell through Carrick himself. He retired as a player in 2018 and coached under Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, took interim charge in November 2021, then left to manage Middlesbrough. United brought him back as head coach on 13 January 2026, after Ruben Amorim left. He took them to third place on 71 points and was given the job permanently.
Casemiro’s contract expired and left United short in midfield, so Carrick spent his first summer transfer window there. Andrey Santos arrived from Chelsea and Youri Tielemans from Aston Villa, for a combined £85m. Carrick told Sky Sports News: “We want more, we need more.” Rashford returned when Barcelona decided not to pay the £26m to sign him for good, and his first competitive appearance for United since December 2024 could come at the MKM Stadium.
Ten league meetings, no Hull win
Before Friday’s amazing victory for the hosts, the fixture’s history ran one way. Hull played United 10 times in the Premier League and never won: two draws, eight defeats, seven goals scored to 22 conceded. Hull did beat United once in those years, in the second leg of an EFL Cup semi-final a week before the 2017 league meeting, but the league record is unbroken.
The two draws are the whole of it: 0-0 at home in May 2015, and 0-0 at Old Trafford in February 2017. The last meeting in Hull, in August 2016, finished 0-1.
What this match tests
What Hull did last season, whichever reading you take, was take the one chance a game gave them. It carried them out of the Championship, and against United it worked again. Can Hull use this win as a springboard for a miraculous survival? Time will tell over the next 37 league games.
Online Reporter