Manchester United have this evening confirmed that Wayne Rooney is carrying a toe injury, seemingly making him a major doubt for the trip to Newcastle on Saturday. After hours of rumour on Twitter, the club have posted their own tweets on the subject, quoting David Moyes who goes on to indicate that Rooney could also be a doubt for Wednesday’s Champions League second leg with Bayern.
“He’s got a terrible toe. Not only is it a problem for this game, it could be a problem for the Munich match. We need to monitor it. We’ll get him treatment all over the weekend and see if we can speed it up.”
Meanwhile, Twitter is awash with screenshots of both the Times and the Sun back pages who look set to carry the story in tomorrow morning’s editions. Earlier this evening a story, first posted at 6pm on the Manchester Evening News site, reported the injury but was hastily removed. The article has now returned following the official tweets from Old Trafford.
The Evening News article includes further quotes from the United boss…
“There is not an awful lot you can do with a toe injury. Sometimes you can feel better quite quickly with them and sometimes you need an injection to play with it if it is bruising. With a lot of toe injuries you have to make sure there isn’t a hairline fracture or crack in your toe. We will have all that checked.”
Given the statements from Moyes and the importance of Wednesday’s second leg in Germany, the chances of Rooney taking to the field at St James’ Park look remote to say the least. The United boss appears to indicate that the striker will undergo treatment for the injury in a bid to have him available for the Bayern tie. The injury may not be severe. It could, of course, be a smokescreen to protect Rooney in preparation for the midweek tie but, regardless, this will likely see Danny Welbeck or even Javier Hernandez lead the line in the North East.
Rooney was included in our Scout Picks earlier today and has been bought by over 25,000 Fantasy Premier League managers so far this Gameweek. However, with a blank to follow in Gameweek 34, he’s now set to suffer significant sales.
Reluctantly, we’ve made the decision to edit the Scout Picks graphic following this news for fear of misleading visitors who may not have digested this news. We have left the original copy on the Scout Picks article intact, however.
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