Ayden Heaven has only played six times for Man United but he’s made a thoroughly favourable impression at the club.
Heaven joined United in January
Ayden Heaven is intent on becoming a goalscoring centre back for Manchester United.
United signed Heaven, 18, from Arsenal for a £1.5million compensation fee in the winter transfer window and the centre back has been a revelation.
Heaven has only played six times for United but he made a stunning impression on his first Champions League and Premier League starts in back-to-back victories against Real Sociedad and Leicester City.
A foot injury in the latter fixture sidelined Heaven for two months but the Londoner is well placed to challenge for a starting spot in head coach Ruben Amorim’s back three.
Heaven is the only natural left-footed centre half available to Amorim as Lisandro Martinez continues his rehabilitation from an anterior cruciate ligament injury. Heaven scored in United’s post-season tour victory against a Hong Kong XI in May and he came close to breaking the deadlock in the goalless draw with Leeds in Stockholm last week.
“I was surprised at the amount of games I played but I knew when I was going to play I was going to make an impact,” Heaven said.
“I just try to be calm whenever I have the ball, and just pick the right passes. It helps if you have a calm mind and just play. I can play in the middle on the left, but the left probably more suits me because of my ability with the ball.
“I can drive with the ball, I can overlap if I’m needed to and I can just get forward more. That’s one of my biggest strengths.
“When I was younger I was obviously an attacker, but it was when I was around 14, 15 when I had a massive growth spurt and I started to filter back a bit.
“I started off at left back, then I went to left side to centre back, and that’s when I started looking up to the likes of (Virgil) van Dijk and William Saliba, and players like that.
Heaven came close to scoring against Leeds in Stockholm
“I watched them very closely, the likes of Saliba and Gabriel (Magalhaes), and I learned a lot from them. You can see they’re quite good in the air from corners.
“I want to score more, and I’m working on that. That’s what I want to add to my game, scoring from set pieces. I just feel [chipping in with goals] is so important because, as you can see in a modern game, scoring from set pieces changes the game really, and it’s so important.
“Obviously the goal in Hong Kong shows my quality, and I just want to continue and try to score more.”
The United hierarchy is targeting a top-six finish after ending last season in a humiliating 15th. United have no European football in their schedule, so will have greater recovery time than the nine teams competing in Uefa competitions.
Heaven scored in Hong Kong(Image: Yu Chun Christopher Wong/Manchester United via Getty Images.)
United have gone two years without qualifying for the Champions League, the first time that has happened since they re-entered the competition in 1993. Heaven believes that Champions League qualification is a realistic aim.
“As you can see from United’s history, we’ve won the Champions League three times,” Heaven added. “I think that’s where we belong, really, and we will be back there in a matter of time.
“It’s going to be six or seven days in between each game. It’s a lot of time for us to recover in between each game and it’s going to put us in the best place possible to finish as high as we want.”