Erik ten Hag called on his players to rock up to training early after the Manchester United boss arrived at Carrington at 7am.
The Dutchman watched from the dugout as his side were dealt a harsh lesson at Anfield, losing 7-0 to arch rivals Liverpool. United conceded six second-half goals as they capitulated on Merseyside, falling to their worst defeat in the Premier League era.
It was also the first time since 1931 that the Red Devils had lost 7-0 and an internal inquest is due, despite the forward strides made on the red half of Manchester. Only a week prior to their Anfield mauling had United claimed the Carabao Cup, but they were swiftly bought back down to earth.
Liverpool hammered United 5-0 last term, and on that occasion Ole Gunnar Solskjaer gave them the next day off. This time round it was quite the contrast with Ten Hag the first to march through the doors at Carrington, according to the Manchester Evening News.
Two hours passed before his players begun to turn up with the likes of Casemiro and David de Gea, two of the squad's leaders, arrived in their cars, ready for a scathing assessment of their performance.
The players were forced to listen to their manager's verdict in the immediate aftermath on Sunday, but could get the chance to speak on Monday. Ten Hag though seemed to have little room for understanding as he took aim at several aspects of their performance.
He said when quizzed on if his player's had spoke following the loss: "No, I didn't give them the chance until now. We have to talk about that, I have only given my opinion about it and we will talk about that tomorrow. I know this team will reset and we have to bounce back and we have shown in the past we can.
"I analyse the performance of my team: how's their approach, how is their character, how's their mentality, how do they cooperate together, how do they deal with the setbacks? Look at the body language, how they communicate with each other. They didn't cooperate together anymore and they didn't fulfil their jobs. There are many things that makes me angry but to concede so easily the goals is definitely one of them."
Real Betis is United's next assignment as they turn their attention to the Europa League. After that they take on Southampton at Old Trafford where they will be asked for a serious response as their away form against the top sides continues to be an issue. Ten Hag has seen his side ship at least three goals at Arsenal, Brentford, Manchester City and now Liverpool so far this term.
Luke Shaw admits that the team's level has dipped since their Wembley success and admitted that they needed to sit down and discuss what went wrong as they look to keep their campaign on track with a top four finish very much in their grasp.
The left-back said: “It was completely unacceptable. Our standards have clearly dropped since we won that trophy [Carabao Cup] and, in the last couple of games, we haven’t been our normal selves – we need to find the good things we were doing before and bring them back, because this hurts a lot and it’s really unacceptable what we did in that second half.
“We need to realise that [it won’t define our campaign], that’s what we’re having, a big debrief tomorrow [Monday] about the game, about what went wrong. We need to keep the belief, keep the character and bring back the personality and mentality, that we know we have, but we lost today."
