United plays without Rooney against Milan

(GSM) – Sir Alex Ferguson says Wayne Rooney is a major doubt for Wednesday’s Champions League clash with AC Milan after the striker was forced to sit out United’s win at Wolves.

Rooney aggravated a knee injury after playing all but four minutes of England’s friendly win over Egypt, and that kept him out of United’s game against Wolves. But a hamstring injury to Michael Owen prompted Rooney into action at Wembley and the England international was back on the same heavy pitch just three days later on duty for his country much to his manager’s surprise.

Sir Alex had expected Rooney to sit out England’s friendly against Egypt following his knee complaint, but the 24-year-old ended up playing nearly the whole game and now looks to have paid the price for his exertions.

“Rooney is very doubtful for the Milan game unfortunately,” Sir Alex said. “It’s one of these bad bits of luck you get – the Wembley pitch has just killed him,” he added.

Red boss continued, “I was pleased with how Berbatov did against Wolves though and I’ll probably start with him on Wednesday.”

The loss of Rooney would be a bitter blow for the Reds who are already without the injured Michael Owen(hamstring), Anderson (knee), Ryan Giggs (arm) and John O’Shea (leg).

Wes Brown was replaced at half-time by Gary Neville at Molineux after tweaking his knee, while Jonny Evans is also nursing a knee problem which forced him to miss the trip to Molineux having withdrawn from the Northern Ireland squad earlier in the week.

“We’re not far away from having Owen Hargreaves back and Macheda has now started training,” confirmed Sir Alex.

“That’s a bonus because he can score a goal which could be important without Michael Owen for the rest of the season,” he said.