Ayden Heaven labelled Manchester United\u2019s ambitions unbounded after his player-of-the-match display in Friday night\u2019s win over Newcastle United.<\/p>\n
Only Manchester City had outscored United through the first 17 Premier League games of the campaign, a stark contrast with last term when scoring was the club\u2019s main weakness. United\u2019s goal return this season has not been the issue; defensive vulnerability has. High-scoring draws against Nottingham Forest and Tottenham Hotspur (both 2\u20132) and Bournemouth (4\u20134) represent six points that, had they been secured, would have lifted United into the top three and left them five points shy of the summit.<\/p>\n
The victory over Newcastle produced just a second clean sheet of the season and the first since the 2\u20130 win against Sunderland in October. Heaven, 19, has impressed while covering for the absences of Harry Maguire and Matthijs de Ligt. The former Arsenal academy player had logged only 28 minutes of Premier League football this season before being selected to start each of the last five matches. Noussair Mazraoui is also currently unavailable alongside Maguire and De Ligt.<\/p>\n
Heaven\u2019s contribution was particularly valuable with chief creators Bruno Fernandes, Bryan Mbeumo and Amad Diallo absent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think as Manchester United, we belong in Europe,\u201d Heaven, 19, said postgame.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to get back [in Europe] next season. So, we can even push for top four, possibly win the league, anything\u2019s possible. We want to keep trying.\u201d<\/p>\n
A top-six or possible top-seven finish is presented as the minimum target to secure European qualification after missing out altogether in 2025\u201326, but Heaven declined to place a ceiling on what United could achieve.<\/p>\n
Consistency will determine how far any ambition can be taken. United\u2019s only run of consecutive league wins since Ruben Amorim arrived 14 months ago came in October, when they beat Sunderland, Liverpool and Brighton & Hove Albion in succession.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really pleased with \u00adAyden, you can feel he improving every game,\u201d Amorim said in response to the youngster\u2019s performance against Newcastle. \u201cHe\u2019s young, but you don\u2019t feel that he has a good game and then he slows the game or the thinking during the game. Now, you feel that improved. ]”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ayden Heaven says United can push for top four or more after his player of the match display today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5435,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,969],"tags":[1021,181,342],"class_list":["post-5436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-amorim","tag-ayden-heaven","tag-bruno-fernandes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}