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Manchester United suffered a controversial defeat to Manchester City at Old Trafford, adding to what has already been a miserable start to the season.

The Red Devils were handed a major advantage when Phil Foden was sent off after only 23 minutes, but they still went behind in the second half after Erling Haaland’s goal was allowed to stand despite initially being flagged offside.

The refereeing body later publicly acknowledged that the decision was incorrect and that the goal should not have counted, yet United were still unable to find a way past 10 men across 70 minutes of play.

United now have just four points from four matches in a dreadful opening to the new campaign, with the optimism generated by last season fading away with every passing game.

Speaking to Sky Sports, former United player and now pundit Gary Neville shared his view on the match.

He said, “I’d like to think that they’re not concentrating and focussing on the refereeing decisions and they’re focussing on the work they need to do on improving their performance.”

Neville added, “what you don’t want to do is give football players or anybody excuses. That’s it. So they’ve got to go out there tomorrow, or whenever it is that they start training again, and begin to think about what happens when they go down to ten men again.”

Michael Carrick created further confusion among the Manchester United supporters by choosing Matheus Cunha ahead of Benjamin Sesko in the number nine position, and Neville feels he waited too long before trying to correct that call.

He said, “I think Michael Carrick maybe will reflect upon the fact that he could have made changes earlier. When you know for 20 minutes before half-time that it’s not going your way with 11 men, I think then Sesko should have come on straightaway to be a bit more of a battering ram up top.”

Neville went on, “it was obvious it wasn’t quite working. He made the substitution eventually after 67 minutes which only left Sesko with 25 minutes so things like that will be reflected on and analysed I’m sure. That’s what they’ve got to concentrate on.”

United do not have much time to recover from this defeat, with fixtures arriving thick and fast, as the Red Devils are set to host Brighton and Hove Albion on Wednesday night in the Carabao Cup.

They then have one more match before the international break, an away trip to Craven Cottage to face Fulham.