United’s Injury Blow… And Boost.

Not much today. At least that’s what it was at the time of writing this. Highly doubt things would be much different. But whatever we have to talk about today is mostly positive stuff, depending on how you look at it.

Today’s topic is only about injuries. While the second leg of international games is to be held on Wednesday, before we really get to know which players have picked up knocks, we have a couple of players who are certainly not playing them.

Owen Hargreaves has limped out of the England squad and has returned to Manchester. The official site and other sources have confirmed it. Now it may not be pleasant news if you are an England fan, but to me it’s great news that he’s ruled out of Wednesday’s game. He now faces a race to be fit for the Everton game. The injury problem with Owen seems to be very frustrating. I bet he must be terribly gutted at not being able to play for England. Anyway, hopefully it’s not too serious and he would be ready for Everton. He is, as we’ve said many times already, a key, key player. It’s his ability to break up play and do the mopping up so well that our defence hasn’t been too troubled this season.

Everton, on paper, are our toughest opponents so far – their players have been in good form – and we need to dominate the midfield if we are to gain anything out of the game.

The other injured player, we intend to talk about, is Gary Neville. The captain is expected to return for the big game against Chelsea. While he has resumed training he admits the Everton game is too early for him to make a comeback. I would probably expect him to come off the bench against Chelsea but it certainly would be a big test for him, coming as he would, from a long injury layoff. Nonetheless, Neville’s return would at least give us something coming in from the right side of the field. All the forays, down the wing, from our full backs have been from the left side – thanks to Evra – but that would be rather one dimensional.

Neville’s return would also give our team some leadership to spur the boys on during the game – something that seemed lacking in the games played so far.

Meanwhile, ex-Red, Tim Howard looks likely to miss out on the Everton game after dislocating his finger while playing for USA vs Brazil. Hopefully, a really nutty goal keeper fills in and lets in a bucketload of goals.

And while still on the subject of injuries, Three-Lung Park seems to be progressing well and feels confident of being back by January. Now that’s one player who’s directness and versatility is handy. We wish him well.

Finally, we discuss about Rooney separately over here.

So this week should be really exciting, what with Ronaldo and Saha, injuries notwithstanding, expected to start. Finally we can hope to see Carlos Tevez play a full game off Saha and see how Ronaldo links up with the Argentinian.

Good times ahead lads!

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