Man Utd kept a clean sheet in their 1-0 win against Chelsea despite suffering a crisis at the back over the past week.

Michael Carrick felt Ayden Heaven delivered a show of character after his impressive performance in Manchester United’s 1-0 win at Chelsea.

The teenage centre-back was pitched into the team for his first start in more than three months and it was part of a makeshift defence and as the only fit senior central defender available to Carrick.

With Matthijs de Ligt and Leny Yoro sidelined by injury and Harry Maguire and Lisandro Martinez suspended, Heaven partnered full-back Noussair Mazraoui in the centre of defence but shook off any rust to deliver an impressive performance.

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“Ayden, credit to him, coming in as a young player for one,” said Carrick. “[He’s] not played a lot of football recently, played for England Under-20s a couple of weeks ago, but to come into that environment is not something that you can take for granted, you know?

“So credit to him. We say the same things to young players all the time, sometimes they look at you as if, like, yeah good one or whatever, but in terms of training every day and looking after yourself and being ready, ’cause you never know when that comes, he probably wouldn’t have thought it would come at the moment with how it has gone, but he was there, he was prepared, and he took it in his stride magnificently.”

Yoro suffered an injury in training late in the week that derailed Carrick’s plans for the trip to Chelsea and the head coach revealed he adapted with a series of meetings on Friday to prepare Heaven and Mazraoui for the task ahead.

“They were fantastic,” he said. “It was more meetings and talks, really, and clips, and a few discussions, and the other side of things, I’m just telling them to go and play, you know, we trust them.

“Two fantastic players, and giving them the confidence to just go and commit to it, and understand you could give your best. And then, obviously, a little bit of extra protection, not that they needed it, but as a team, and things that we needed to stop, and stop with a little bit extra kind of, maybe effort, which we try to do that as well.

“It was short notice. It was probably through the day yesterday and again, the boys took it on so well and I love when you see players thrive in those moments, when it’s sometimes challenging. That’s a tough place to come into in a game like that and I thought they took it in their stride so well.”

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