United lost their unbeaten start to the season in spectacular fashion as they lost to the side at the bottom of the league, but the league leaders are back in Premiership action this weekend against Blackpool.
Phelan said: “You can learn from defeats and we need them to learn quickly. They are quality players but they are young and they are going to make mistakes.
“It’s how they deal with those mistakes and how they react. So we’ll be looking in the next few days to see what character they’ve got and whether they can step up to the plate next time.”
