Rio Ferdinand admits he was over the moon to watch Manchester United keep a confidence-boosting clean sheet without their first-choice centre-back pairing against Leeds United.
Having drawn with the same opponents at Old Trafford on Wednesday night, United shuffled their defensive pack for the Elland Road return on Sunday afternoon. Only this time there was a win to celebrate.
Raphael Varane and Lisandro Martinez started in that first showdown, as they have regularly throughout the campaign, but made way for £80million captain Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw on this occasion. Martinez was subbed on later in the piece with the score deadlocked.
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Goals from Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho settled the scores for United late on, but Ferdinand was more impressed with how Erik ten Hag and his squad underlined their defensive strength in depth. It comes as Martinez prepares to sit out the impending Europa League play-off first leg with Barcelona.
Ferdinand chatted about the Leeds win on his ever-popular FIVE podcast. He said: "A pleasing thing is we had our two first-choice centre-backs who didn't play the game. We still kept a clean sheet.
"That was as much of a massive shout for me as Marcus scoring yet another goal. Maguire comes in and Shaw plays left-side at centre-back alongside him, and we still managed to keep a clean sheet.
"In terms of confidence building, through not just your first XI but the whole squad, United seem to be getting into a really, really good place towards the real business end of the season."
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