Man United boss Carrick backs teenager Heaven to shine at Chelsea: ‘I’ve got no worries’

Manchester United will head to Chelsea tomorrow night with one of the youngest central-defensive pairings in their history but interim boss Michael Carrick has backed Ayden Heaven to thrive.

Both Harry Maguire and Leandro Martinez are suspended – the former having been handed an additional game ban for his reaction to being sent off at Bournemouth and the latter due to his controversial red card against Leeds on Monday night.

That leaves Heaven and Leny Yoro, 20, as the only available centre-halves for a game that is pivotal to United’s hopes of claiming a top-five spot and a place in next season’s Champions League.

Yoro has featured 29 times in the Premier League this season so the greater focus will be on Heaven but Carrick is confident the 19-year-old will hold his own.

“I think Ayden’s in a good place,” he said. “Well, I know he’s in a good place. He’s obviously still young and he’s progressing through the early stages of his career, so I think it’s pretty natural for him to play some games and maybe not some others.

“He’s training really well, he’s learning, he’s listening, he wants to improve. So, I think it’s pretty natural, for a centre-half of his age, he’s probably well ahead of schedule in terms of the games that he’s played.

“He’s trained well, I’ve got no worries. He went away and played with England a couple of weeks ago and done well, so yeah, [he’s] looking forward to the game, for sure.”

Manchester United boss Carrick still fuming over suspended players

United start the weekend still in third place despite the defeat at home to Leeds on Monday night but another setback at Stamford Bridge would see the Blues, who are sixth, close to within four points.

It is a game in which experience could prove key and Carrick was disappointed not to have either Maguire or Martinez available.

He added: “Massively disappointed of course. We’ve had a few reasons to be disappointed over those sort of situations over the last few weeks, but we have got to move on. The decisions have been made – something that we’re really disappointed with in many ways – but we’ve got to move on now and that’s what we’ll do.”

Carrick described Martinez’s dismissal for pulling the hair of Leeds striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin as “shocking” after the game and had not changed his mind when asked about the incident today.

“We are disappointed. We didn’t agree with it. It was pretty obvious how I felt about it after the game and I still feel that way,” he said. “It is what it is, we’ve been hit with some decisions but we have to accept it and move on.”

Chelsea versus Manchester United is a ‘proper game’

Carrick is optimistic Kobbie Mainoo will be passed fit this weekend for what he described as a “proper game”.

“It’s an important game. We’re in a good position in the league and we want to keep building on that,” Carrick said. “It’s a tough place to go, always has been. We’ve had some tough games down there. Most of the time they’ve been good games in terms of what it brings.

“It has the feelings of a real, proper game so we’ll be ready for that. We’ve prepared well and take the confidence from what we’ve built.

“We didn’t get the result we wanted against Leeds but the character that we showed we have to take into this game with an extra player and make the most of it.”

United will also be without left-back Patrick Dorgu who is still in the rehab phase of his comeback from a serious hamstring injury.