Ayden Heaven has only played three times for Man United but his performance level has got better with each outing.
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Heaven knows he's not miserable now
Heaven knows he's not miserable now
Ruben Amorim has suggested Ayden Heaven will make his first Premier League start against Leicester City after a superb full debut for Manchester United against Real Sociedad.
Heaven, 18, made his first United appearance less than two weeks ago as a substitute for extra time against Fulham in the FA Cup and he excelled off the bench again against former club Arsenal last week.
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Amorim dropped 30-year-old centre half Victor Lindelof, set to be released in the summer, in favour of Heaven in the Europa League round-of-16 second leg triumph over Sociedad. Heaven played 90 minutes for the first time in his professional career as United produced a crowdpleasing 4-1 win.
United travel to Leicester on Sunday night and Heaven, who arrived from Arsenal in January for an undisclosed compensation fee, is in line to keep his place.
"If he continues like that he is going to play," Amorim said. "He is young, he didn’t play much this season, maybe just 45 minutes for the Under 21s, a few minutes here and now a full game.
"I really like his confidence. I like his pace and think he is good in defending the box. I think he is quite complete but he has a lot of work to do. And in the Premier League we will face a different type of player and he will be tested in a different way.
"So we are trying to manage all this because he is still really young."
United have lost three out of 16 matches this calendar year and built on their progressive draws with Sociedad and Arsenal last week to qualify for the Europa League quarter-finals with a 5-2 aggregate victory.
The performances in all three matches over the last eight days have been additional cause for optimism, despite United's 14th-place status in the Premier League. With the season still salvageable through Europe, Amorim is confident the players are starting to take on his instructions.
"I feel that in the last games that we understand the idea of what we want to do better," he added. "We are better at understanding the plan for the games, we are giving more time for the team to win or draw games - not conceding a goal and losing our minds and suffering another goal. We are understanding the moments of the game and also we are understanding better the way we want to play.
United beat Sociedad 4-1
United beat Sociedad 4-1
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"We have to be humble and forget the table and face Leicester like we faced Real Sociedad. We just need to win to improve our position in the table and the most important thing is continuing with this feeling of winning and that we are improving as a team.
"I know that in football, especially in our moment, we can have a really good result and then draw. Our focus is to continue, don’t be too happy or too depressed.
"My idea is to continue. We have to survive. That definition could change in the end but our idea is to improve the team and prepare to be fresh against Leicester and not focus on changing our minds if we win or lose."