Manchester United & England will be without the services of Wayne Rooney after he picked up another injury involving broken bones in the foot. This time it’s a hairline fracture rather than a fully blown break of a metatarsal, however the result is the same. A protracted recovery program that will hamper results for both club and country, United are already two points behind Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool in the race for the title. Meanwhile England have the crunch qualifiers for Euro 2008. Which with a recovery period of eight weeks or more Rooney has little chance of helping England on the field.

Manchester United have Tevez as a ready replacement for Rooney, the critics will have to wait a while before they can see if the two can play together. They will hope that Saha and Solskjaer will be fit soon or they will have to rely on makeshift forward John O’Shea to help get their title charge back on track.

England on the other hand have no recognised ready replacement. Dean Ashton is still on the road to recovery from his last appearance, Bent & Defoe have struggled to get a place at Spurs and could hardly be seen as form players. Michael Owen is still on the treatment table at Newcastle, Andy Johnston could play along side Peter Crouch. In all truth the injury crisis up front is more severe than the one at the back. As England will need to score more than they let in if they are to qualify for next summers tournament.