MAX Aarons believes there is a "freshness" among Cherries’ young back-line, with "pace" and "experience" helping them to quickly build-up their relationships on the pitch.

Cherries picked up their first clean sheet of the season on Sunday, with an impressive performance during a 0-0 draw with big-spending Chelsea.

Aarons, 23, was part of a starting back four with an average age of 21.75 at the weekend, playing alongside Milos Kerkez (19), Illia Zabarnyi (21) and Lloyd Kelly (24).

Despite their tender age, the quartet have plenty of senior football behind them, with well over 450 professional appearances under their belt.

Kerkez and Zabarnyi are already full internationals, with Hungary and Ukraine respectively, while Aarons and Kelly previously featured regularly for England under-21s.

Goalkeeper and captain Neto, 34, provides bags of experience, while 26-year-old Marcos Senesi came off the bench against Chelsea to help see out the result.

Discussing the defensive unit, summer signing Aarons told the Daily Echo: “It’s a real, young back-line.

“If you look at everyone’s age in the back-line, especially on Sunday with Lloydy in there as well, really, really young.

“But it gives us that freshness, that pace and I think everyone wants to be on the front foot and very aggressive.

“Then at certain times trying to use our experience, a lot of us have played games in that back-line, to form those relationships and be as solid as we can.

“I think we’re really, really building into it. We’re the other side of the first international break now and I think you can start to see it.”

He added: “We were delighted with the performance (against Chelsea).

“Everyone is really, really happy. That’s everything we want to do in the way we play.

“I think that’s probably our best performance of the season so far, which obviously then leaves you a little bit disappointed with the result, not coming away with three points.

“But the one thing we worked on over the international break was being solid defensively as well, and think you could definitely see that.

“I think those relationships are starting to build in terms of where we’re at as a team, but overall really, really happy with the performance.”

Discussing the importance of a first clean sheet of the season, Aarons added: “That’s massive. Any game in this league is tough.

“Obviously to tick off a clean sheet, the first one of the season, is great.

“It was something that we worked on over the international break, in terms of our defending, so really happy.”

He added: “When you play as well as I feel we did, and the problems that we caused them, it does leave you a bit disappointed with the end result.

“You’re left thinking could it have been more? But overall, really, really happy with the performance.

“We’ll get some good results and some good wins, as long as we play to that standard and that level of intensity every week.”