Will he or won’t he?
Fergie tells it straight. Here are some excerpts:
“We’ve given a proper statement, a proper message out, about what we intend to do with the boy. As from today, the oxygen chamber arrives here this afternoon.
“He will get treatment, hopefully that helps but there’s no conclusive evidence it does improve injuries. But there’s no evidence against it, in the sense that it won’t do any harm. Anyway, everything is worth a try at this stage. As I’ve said, we’ll do our very best to get him there. It’s in our interests as well as England’s.
“There won’t be any statements from the club again. Every week, England will get an update on exactly how he’s doing and, if they want to send the physio or the doctor up, they’re free to do so.
“The break he’s got is in his fourth metatarsal, it’s a small fracture. The one slightly above it is nothing to worry about at all, nothing at all. It doesn’t affect his recovery, there’s no damage at all. There’s a slight hairline, you know.
“It’s really in the hands of how Wayne improves. Some players over the years, in our experience, Gary Neville ended up having his pinned because it hadn’t recovered properly. David Beckham, I think myself, made a mistake in joining up with England in Dubai. I think he’d have been much fitter if he’d stayed here but he wanted to go to Dubai with the England squad. I don’t think he was fit enough to play in the World Cup, to be honest with you.
“Roy Keane, I think, was 10-11 weeks. He could’ve played in the reserves the week he was leaving, I think it was 10 weeks, you know, so it really depends. Different metatarsal bones – some are more serious than others as was the case with Rooney. The case with Wayne [in Euro 2004], his last injury was 14 weeks.
“We don’t want to hear of that kind of recovery but, nonetheless, they’re all different degrees of that type of injury. To go back to the first point, we need to wait and see how it develops and improves when he does the next scans but we’ll give him every chance.”
“That’s it. Finished.”