Meet Ayden Heaven and his agent mum, Lisa – ‘I had a lot of setbacks, but it helped me as a person to this day’

Sports

add

Ayden Heaven and his mum, Lisa, are sitting around a table in the dining room of Shrigley Hall, a spa hotel in Cheshire, and giving themselves a moment to reflect on his sharp rise at Manchester United. They think back to his Premier League debut, which came against Arsenal on March 9, little more than a month after he had left the north London club having made one appearance for them.

“I was confident, to be fair, because I literally trained with them every day, so I kind of knew each individual and their attributes,” Heaven says of his former Arsenal team-mates, his deep, steady voice exuding that same calm. “It was surreal, probably one of my best moments in life.”

In the stands at Old Trafford, Lisa’s nerves were more strained. She has owned a beauty salon in Essex for eight years and had invited a group of 11 colleagues and clients to watch alongside her. “Everyone has been behind us through the whole journey,” she says. “They’ve seen me run out of the salon, go pick him up, drop him to a session. They’ve seen me finish work and drive to Germany for a tournament.

“It was lovely being with them. We were just under the commentary box, so you can see behind the bench and then him warming up.

“I was like, ‘He probably won’t get on, guys’. I thought it would be so premature. He was a second-year scholar. But he was warming up for quite a long time. And then we all sat there like, ‘Oh my god, he’s coming on’.”

At half-time, Heaven, 18, replaced the injured Leny Yoro and put in an accomplished performance that stood out given his age and the game being only his third in senior football. He had played 10 minutes for Arsenal at Preston North End in the League Cup in October, then all of extra time for United in their FA Cup tie against Fulham a week earlier.

Heaven laughs when asked whether performing in front of his mum and her friends added any extra pressure. “There are 75,000 other people…” he replies. Point taken.

(Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)

Lisa takes up the topic, turning to her son. “I used to run the 800 metres and be like, ‘Oh god, my dad’s here today, better win’. So you don’t feel like that?”

Heaven shakes his head.

The pair clearly have a strong, loving bond, and there is also a formal connection. Lisa represents her son as a FIFA licensed football agent.

“Since the age of three, when he went to his first kickabout and we saw he had this obsession with football, throughout the years, I just felt like I’m probably the only person I would trust to make sure he reaches his maximum potential,” she explains.

“I know how much he puts in behind the scenes, and all the agents I had met, I didn’t think anyone had given me their sales pitch that sold it, understood him like a player, or knew the challenges we were facing and what pathway is best for him.”

Prompted by her son being invited to train with Mikel Arteta’s squad at 16, Lisa started studying and qualified as an agent in 2024 after sitting the test at Wembley Stadium. “You’ve just got to educate yourself,” she says. “It took me a year to pass the exam because it was like learning a whole new business, a whole new set of regulations.”

Official recognition under her belt, Lisa then took an active role in her son’s transfer from Arsenal to United in the winter window, assisted by Clintons Solicitors’ sports and media lawyers, Andy Squires May and Karim Bouzidi. Frankfurt made a push, inviting Heaven to watch a game in their stadium, while Barcelona, Chelsea and Marseille also expressed serious interest.

United, though, led by director of football Jason Wilcox, won Heaven over with an invitation to Old Trafford for the Europa League match against Rangers. “That was the game that made my mind up, really, because I’ve never been to a louder stadium than that,” he says. “It was really noisy and the staff in the directors’ box were really kind.”

He had a brief greeting with Sir Alex Ferguson and also got excited at the formation in front of his eyes. “I saw myself playing in that team while I was watching. I felt like three at the back would suit me.”

Fernandes celebrates scoring against Rangers (Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)

That was what Wilcox had said to Heaven during the process of choosing which club to join. United saw Heaven as a good fit for the spot on the left side of the back line in Ruben Amorim’s system.

“I met Jason at Carrington and he was showing us around, and then I saw Ruben when we went out to the pitches,” Heaven says. “We spoke for like five minutes and he said he would help me.”

United agreed a £1.5million ($2m) compensation fee to sign Heaven six months ahead of his contract expiring, bringing an end to five years at Arsenal. “It was time for a new challenge and to experience new things, a different place in the country, different style of football,” Heaven says. “I felt like it was easier for me to get in United’s first team and it’s working out so far. I just want to continue it.”

Heaven has made six competitive appearances for United, although he would have featured more had he not suffered an ankle ligament injury against Leicester in March. It was after that game, and Heaven’s self-described best display for United in the 4-1 win against Real Sociedad to reach the Europa League quarter-finals, that Wayne Rooney heaped praise on him.

“To play for Man United at 18 is a lot of pressure, because those expectations are on you from the first minute,” Rooney said on BBC’s Match of the Day. “To come in as a centre-back, a position you can’t afford to make mistakes, he looks like he’s been there for years, that’s the biggest compliment I can give him.”

Rooney might be surprised to learn that Heaven only switched to central defence two years ago, under direction from Per Mertesacker, Arsenal’s academy manager. He had started out as a striker until age 11, then became a winger at 13, and a midfielder after that.

“I only moved into defence when I was about 15, so it was quite late. Then I only started playing centre-back when I was 16, a first-year scholar. I was a left-back before I went to centre-half. I played everywhere, really. The coaches thought I was more suited there and it’s worked out.”

Mertesacker won the World Cup as a centre-back for Germany, but Lisa admits she needed persuading when she heard about her son’s positional change. “Per Mertesacker was like, ‘He’s not a midfielder, he’s not a winger, he’s a defender’. I was like, ‘No, he’s a No 6, he goes box to box’. Then I saw him play left-sided centre-back, I thought, ‘OK, you know’. I feel like Per always saw something in Ayden that no one else saw.”

Lisa’s determination to fight for her son has been there throughout his career. She took him to various training sessions and trials, including for grassroots clubs in Edmonton, London. At professional level, Tottenham declined to make an offer, and he spent four years at West Ham until he was released aged 12, prompting a year out of academy football. Chelsea took him on trial, but things went no further. Fulham were interested, but the 90-minute trip to their training ground was too far. Then Arsenal signed him up. “I had a lot of setbacks in that time, but it helped me as a person to this day,” Heaven says.

Mertesacker is credited with moving Heaven to his best position (David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)

All the travel and patience looked to be paying off when Heaven trained with Arsenal’s first team, which included Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard, at 16. Not that he told his mum straightaway. “He hadn’t even done his GCSEs and I’m getting people screenshotting pictures and sending them to me,” Lisa says. “I said, ‘Ayden, did this happen?’. He’s like, ‘Oh yeah’. He’s just so unfazed.”

Heaven adds, “Once you’ve received your scholar, you do a release day at London Colney where you train with the under-18s. Then the under-18s trained with the first team that day. That was the first time I’ve seen some of those players in person. I was in midfield at the time. I’ve seen them at the Emirates, but to stand next to them and listen to Mikel speaking, I was kind of starstruck.”

The session was instructive. “You have less time on the ball. You can’t take as many touches as you would in the academy because you’d lose it.”

There have been more lessons since joining United.

“Darren Fletcher helps me a lot in training and matches. My first day at Carrington, he spoke with me. I think he does tend to help a lot of young players. And Harry Maguire also. Before matches, me and Harry have a lot of talks on tactics.”

Mason Mount also made a point of introducing himself on Heaven’s first day. Their previous encounter, during Arsenal’s pre-season friendly against United in Los Angeles last summer, ended with Heaven leaving Mount on the grass through a foul from behind. “I saw him in the canteen and he said he remembers when I hit him in the first minute.”

Lisa has moved to Manchester to live with her son, as well as her two younger children, Neveah, four, and CJ, three. Her eldest, Ariana, 21, is in her final year studying law at university. Heaven lived with a host family at Arsenal, so there are adjustments for him. “Sometimes I can lose a bit of sleep in the mornings because the little ones wake up,” he smiles.

Lisa says, “When he gets home, I feel like that’s his outlet. He runs around with them, he’s on the floor, he’s playing bobsleighs with them. He smashes the ball at them, puts them in goal. When they see him on TV, they’re like, ‘It’s Ayden!’. But it’s crazy because that’s all their life has been. I gave birth and two days later, I was taking him back to training.”

These days, Ayden can drive himself, but Lisa still enjoys playing her part. “I just didn’t expect it, it was like six months after his 17th birthday. He’s come home with a piece of paper and I am like, ‘Oh my god, this means Ayden’s on the road!’.” Ideally, Lisa wanted to provide taxi services for a little longer. “I’ll keep picking you up and dropping you.”

The family received an inadvertent welcome at Old Trafford, too. A banner reading ‘Manchester Is My Heaven’ has stretched between the first and second tiers of the Stretford End since 2022, referencing a quote attributed to Sir Matt Busby.

(Photo courtesy of Manchester United)

“Crazy coincidence,” says Heaven. Lisa felt compelled to get a photograph underneath it when they went on the tour of the stadium. “That’s been blown up at home already,” she says.

Heaven’s United debut came four weeks later, as a replacement for Maguire during the FA Cup defeat against Fulham. “We didn’t know it was going to go to extra time, so I don’t think I was meant to play. I didn’t think I was going to play that early, but I did have the feeling that when I played, I was going to make a mark. I think I defended well.”

Heaven won several headers in United’s box. “I feel like now I’m playing in the men’s game, the ball is in the air a lot sometimes. In the Fulham game, they were putting it into the box for Raul Jimenez and I had to head some away. Same with the Arsenal game, they cross it a lot, so obviously I know that from past experiences, so I kind of expected it.”

Before sending Heaven on, Amorim told him to “be yourself, be calm, and keep it simple”.

Heaven says, “That’s the advice I get from the older people. ‘Get yourself into the game for the first 10 minutes and don’t try anything. Get your confidence’.”

That’s a characteristic Amorim associates with Heaven. “I really like his confidence,” Amorim said in March. “I like his pace, I think he is good in defending the box and I think he is quite complete. But he has a lot of work to do in the Premier League. He will be tested in a different kind of way, so we are trying to manage all of this because he is still really young.”

Heaven says his head coach has helped him a lot in the past months. “In training, he’s always trying to find the best solution for me. If I’ve misplaced a pass or not picked the right pass, he’ll drag it back and help me to improve on where I can pass it better.”

When it comes to the speed Heaven has shown, not least in a sprint to dispossess Patson Daka at the King Power Stadium, Lisa is laying claim to good genetics from her days in track and field. “I was about to train with Team GB, so a good level, running for the county. But I think I just wanted to be a teenager more and I had my first (child) when I was 19, which then changed my whole physique, so I couldn’t run like I used to.”

She turns to her son, smiling. “But it’s definitely in the DNA, you got it from me, didn’t you?” Heaven nods, Lisa laughs.

The pair also share an enjoyment of re-watching matches together after getting home.

“It’s weird because you watch it from a different angle,” Lisa says. “I think that’s something he does straight away because of the adrenaline and the intensity.”

Heaven is preparing for the new season with United (Puma)

One incident that is hard to watch back came when Heaven turned his ankle defending a chance against Daka at Leicester on March 16. “It was quite painful, the most I’ve ever experienced,” Heaven says. “To get injured as I was just getting started, it’s tough in that way, mentally.”

Lisa says, “And he’s never been injured.”

“I always recover quickly,” Heaven adds. “If I take a knock in a game and I’ve been very sore, after a day or two I won’t feel anything.”

Lisa continues, “I was at the game. I was like, ‘Get up, Ayden, get up, Ayden. He’s not getting up. Oh, this is bad’. Afterwards, you could see the adrenaline was still going through him. Then, it was the next day that I saw the swelling, and he just didn’t look like Ayden. I was having to lift a 6ft 4in (193cm) guy, help him around.”

Heaven was out for four weeks before being named on the bench for the trip to Newcastle on April 13, but the next day he suffered a relapse in training. United were extra cautious for his return, waiting until the visit to Chelsea on May 16 to send him on as a late substitute. He started United’s final game of the season, a 2-0 win over Aston Villa.

United sent Heaven a Game Ready compression boot to wear at home to aid recovery, which Lisa filled with ice each day. At Carrington, he got to know other staff, including Michael Clegg, the strength and conditioning coach.

“When you are injured, you don’t see the coaching staff as much as usual,” Heaven says. “You spend most of your time with the physios and the strength and conditioning team. Those guys really helped.”

Heaven was an unused substitute in the Europa League final, but he went on the club’s post-season tour and scored the final goal of a long campaign, heading in Amad’s cross to give United a 3-1 win over Hong Kong.

“I want to score more goals from set pieces,” he says. “You see Gabriel and (Virgil) van Dijk, and defenders like Maguire as well. I want to be like them, in the box scoring headers. I think that’s always a plus to have as a defender. It’s more of a mental thing as well. You’ve got to believe you’re going to score this goal.”

The Athletic’s Laurie Whitwell interviews Heaven and his mum, Lisa (Credit: The Athletic)

Chido Obi, another signing from Arsenal’s academy, had turned the game around with a brace. “We’re really good friends. I’ve known him since he was 12 because he’s always playing up in my age group. Chido is more chilled than you think. You wouldn’t think he scored two goals in that game. He just takes it as his job, nothing big.”

The trip to Asia gave Heaven a window into the global pull of United. “It’s incredible how big the club is,” he says.

Heaven also got a taste of that before he had even played a game for United. “I was in the Trafford Centre on a Saturday evening just after I’d signed. I went there thinking I was still in London or something and it probably wasn’t a good idea. I just got stopped a lot; it was crazy.

“It’s a big privilege and I’m humble about it. I want to keep it that way.”

A commercial deal with Puma, who Heaven is speaking on behalf of, is recognition of his rising profile.

Lisa says, “This is the beginning of the rest of your life, this is the birth. He’s just got to carry on developing and reaching goals.”

Contributing to a better campaign in the Premier League for United is essential. “Obviously, we know that last season wasn’t the best,” he says. “As it’s one game a week, there’s a big gap, and we’re all going to be fully prepared for each game. I think that goes in our favour for finishing the highest possible place in the Premier League.”

(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic, credit: MUFC, Puma)

This news was originally published on this post .