Rooney waits for starting call

Wayne Rooney
12 April 2012

Wayne Rooney is facing an anxious wait to see if he is recalled to the Manchester United team on Saturday when they face West Brom at Old Trafford.

The striker could be on collision course with manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who said he was left out of his side's past two games against Valencia and Sunderland because of an ankle injury but the player has refuted those claims.

England physio Gary Lewin confirmed there was no issues regarding Rooney's fitness during his time with the national team, and told talkSport: "We are in communication with the clubs every day so we knew what was going on with Wayne. I can only speak about the seven days he was with England and he trained every day and was fit for the game."

He added: "He had not played for Manchester United for two weeks before and what happened at United is between them and him. But when he arrived with us he was fit and available to play.

"Manchester United knew with the two weeks he had off and the treatment they were giving him that by the time he came to us he would be ready to train. And they were quite open with us about that."

Owen Hargreaves could be on the bench after a first team absence stretching back over two years.

He was struck down by an acute form of tendinitis in his knees, which he first experienced during his time at Bayern Munich.

Two operations and an extensive period of rehabilitation seemed to have put the 29-year-old back on track by the end of last season.

Yet Hargreaves's hopes of being fit for the start of this campaign were wrecked when he experienced more discomfort after his return to training and he was dispatched back to Colorado by Ferguson for more work with Dr Richard Steadman.

Veteran winger Ryan Giggs is hoping to return against newly-promoted West Brom after a minor hamstring injury as United attempt to maintain their 100% record on home soil.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in