Manchester United will look to bounce back from a difficult start to the season as they travel to Craven Cottage to face Fulham in the Premier League on Sunday afternoon.

It has been a challenging opening campaign for Michael Carrick's side, who have managed just four points from their first four league matches. Defeats to Hull and Manchester City, combined with a disappointing Carabao Cup exit against Brighton, have intensified the pressure at Old Trafford.

The loss to Brighton was particularly frustrating. United raced into a two-goal lead within the opening 10 minutes, only to surrender their advantage and fall to a dramatic 3-2 defeat after a disjointed and error-strewn performance.

Fulham have also struggled to find momentum, collecting just one point from their opening four Premier League fixtures. That solitary point came in an impressive goalless draw away to Liverpool at Anfield. However, confidence has been boosted by a recent 3-2 victory over West Ham in the Carabao Cup.

With both teams enduring disappointing starts, Sunday's encounter presents an opportunity to kickstart their campaigns. While each side will view the match as winnable, the prospect of another setback looms large, with defeat threatening to deepen concerns and further undermine their ambitions for the season.

Despite it being a difficult start to the season for United, Arbeloa is not making the mistake of underestimating the Reds in their Sunday afternoon clash.

The former Real Madrid player and coach laughed off suggestions that it could be a good time to play Carrick's side and instead highlighted the attacking threat within the opposition's squad.

Speaking during his pre-match press conference, the Spaniard explained: “When I see the players that they have, you can see they can win the game in one second.

“[Marcus] Rashford, [Matheus] Cunha, Bruno [Fernandes], [Youri] Tielemans, even the full-backs, they like to go forward.

“They have very talented and top players and, of course, they are Man United, so you know what it means, and like I said before, if we want to beat them – and we believe that we can beat them – we need to play at the very high level that we did at Anfield for 90 minutes."

Everyone knows that United have some very talented attacking players, and things will hopefully click for some of them at Craven Cottage.

But the concerns are defensively, with the Reds having conceded at least twice in four of their opening six games this term.

It is difficult to see where Carrick will find solutions in that regard when United did not sign any defensive players in the transfer window. There are no fresh alternatives in those areas of the pitch.

After testing the youthful options of Ayden Heaven and Leny Yoro in the mid-week cup defeat, Carrick will likely revert to the experience of Lisandro Martinez and Harry Maguire on the weekend, but there are no guarantees that will fix the issues.