Manchester United's Pre-Season Ends with 4-2 Defeat to AC Milan

Manchester United’s pre-season ended with a thud, not a flourish.

A week out from their Premier League opener at promoted Hull City, Michael Carrick’s side twice went in front against AC Milan in Wroclaw and still walked off on the wrong side of a 4-2 defeat. For a club trying to reset the mood, the scoreline cuts through any attempt to dress this up as “just a friendly”.

There were crumbs of comfort. Important ones, too.

• Marcus Rashford, Kobbie Mainoo and Lisandro Martinez all made their first appearances of the summer.
• Bruno Fernandes and Youri Tielemans got 90 minutes into their legs.
• And, crucially, United emerged without any obvious new injuries at the end of a six-game schedule that, until Poland, had been largely encouraging.

Mason Mount remains the one concern. His foot problem, picked up in Gothenburg seven days earlier and initially dismissed as precautionary, has now ruled him out of almost three full matches at precisely the moment he looked in form.

But results shape the conversation, even in July and August. Losing 4-2 to a Milan side coached by former United boss Ruben Amorim will echo louder than the underlying fitness data.

Defensive frailties laid bare

Three of Milan’s four goals came from close range, the kind of finishes that always feel avoidable. Those with access to replays – there was no VAR in Wroclaw – felt one of them should have been ruled out for offside, but that was a small comfort on a night when United’s defensive structure frayed under pressure.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek delivered the final blow, surging beyond Martinez and never looking like he would be caught before drilling his shot past Senne Lammens. Without Lammens, the score could easily have been uglier.

United repeatedly struggled when Milan switched play to their right. Luke Shaw, asked to patrol a vast stretch of turf, often found himself with too much ground to cover and too little help. The spaces between defence and midfield were not huge, but they were exposed, and not plugged quickly enough.

After an impressive first five outings of pre-season, Andrey Santos learned a harsh lesson. His inexperience showed in those pockets where Milan’s midfielders and forwards combined, and United never truly solved it.

These are the details that will occupy Carrick on the flight back to Manchester. Not just who starts at Hull, but how United protect their back line when opponents drag them from side to side.

“We are disappointed with today,” Carrick told MUTV. “We didn’t play very well. There are no excuses.” No attempt to sugar-coat it, no talk of heavy legs.

Rashford returns – and a question hangs in the air

For all the tactical issues, this night may end up remembered for something else entirely: the sight of Marcus Rashford back in a United shirt.

With an hour gone, Carrick sent him on as one of six substitutes. It was Rashford’s first appearance for his boyhood club since the Europa League trip to Viktoria Plzen on 12 December 2024, the game after which Amorim effectively banished him before sanctioning loans to Aston Villa and then Barcelona.

Few expected to see him back in red.

Carrick had ample chances when speaking to UK media in Maynooth on Thursday to state clearly that Rashford would be staying beyond this month. He did not. Club officials, for their part, moved quickly to stress that the number nine shirt Rashford wore in Poland is not a permanent change, keen to head off a rush of shirt purchases based on assumption rather than fact.

On the pitch and around it, Rashford looked at ease. When he went out for his first warm-up, he applauded the warm reception from United supporters in the corner he ran towards. Seconds later, Samuel Chukwueze slid in Milan’s first equaliser at that same end.

Rashford came out later than most of the substitutes for his second-half warm-up but still found time to exchange a few passing tricks with Martinez – a World Cup semi-final opponent just a month ago, now a friendly foil.

Once introduced, Rashford stayed wider than Patrick Dorgu, the man he replaced on the left. Dorgu and Harry Maguire had provided United’s goals earlier in the evening, but eyes were fixed on the returning forward.

His first run ended with him conceding a foul. His next notable involvement, a sharp piece of skill by the corner flag to glide past a defender, brought a ripple of excitement and many in the crowd to their feet. It was a reminder of what he can still do, even if this cameo was more steady than spectacular.

It didn’t need fireworks. It just needed to happen.

Questions for Carrick before the real stuff starts

Pre-season is quickly forgotten once the league begins. Few at Old Trafford will dwell on a sloppy night in Wroclaw if United take care of business against Hull City and Ipswich in their opening Premier League fixtures.

Yet this game leaves Carrick with two clear strands of thought.

• One is technical: how to tighten the spaces that Milan so gleefully exploited, how to protect Shaw on the flank, how to blend the energy of Mainoo and Santos with the nous of Fernandes and Tielemans.
• The other is strategic, and it wears the number ten – or, for one night in Poland, the number nine. What does United’s season look like if Rashford stays? What does it look like if he doesn’t?

The transfer window closes on 1 September. By then, the questions about United’s defending and Rashford’s future will both demand firm answers.