Ole Gunnar Solskjaer hailed Eric Bailly's defending as 'out of this world' on his return for Manchester United in their pivotal Premier League win over Chelsea.
Bailly, 25, made his first United appearance since the 1-1 draw with Chelsea on April 30, having sustained a knee ligament injury in July that sidelined the defender for five months.
Illness to Victor Lindelof forced Solskjaer to start Bailly in a back three with Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw and the Ivory Coast centre half was one of the standout performers as United kept a fourth consecutive clean sheet.
"Absolutely fantastic, wasn't he?" Solskjaer said. "Not a bad [selection] conundrum, because Eric's a top player. It was his first game since we played Chelsea last year in April.
"He's such a top, top defender and his block from [Mateo] Kovacic is out of this world defending. He's quick, he's strong brave as a lion and it's great to have him back."
United went ahead through an Anthony Martial header on the stroke of half-time at Stamford Bridge and Harry Maguire's first goal for the club sealed their first league win in four. Solskjaer has won as many times at Chelsea as the four previous permanent United managers had this century but was unsatisfied with aspects of the performance.
"When you win 2-0 here you're delighted," Solskjaer added. "Absolutely. I'd take that any day of the week. But then again I didn't think we played particularly well, especially with the ball in the first-half.
"We were cumbersome, slow, passing wasn't great, but we got the first goal and then we hung in there."
United have already inflicted two defeats on Manchester City this term, beaten Tottenham and are the only league side to have taken a point off champions-elect Liverpool. Solskjaer displayed big-game nous with the scalps of Spurs, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain last term and struggled to explain his knack for getting results against the elite.
"Well, it's up to me to explain them and when you don't do well you explain why we don't win!" he laughed. "We've got a good team with good quality, we've come here and defended really well, four in four clean sheets on the bounce is a great foundation to work on.
"We found a good way of playing against some of the teams and it worked today as well."
