UNITED midfielder Owen Hargreaves has pulled out of tonight's UEFA Super Cup encounter with Zenit St Petersburg after suffering a recurrence of his long-standing knee injury in training.
He was due to make a 45-minute appearance in Monaco and there had been some speculation Hargreaves could even find his way into Fabio Capello's squad for next month's World Cup qualifiers against Andorra and Croatia despite Sir Alex Ferguson rejecting the theory.
But any hope of Hargreaves donning the Three Lions again has now been squashed, with the midfielder missing the Zenit game tonight.
The extent of the 27-year-old's problem is not clear but his absence is a blow given Michael Carrick is also out with an ankle injury.
Hargreaves will certainly be frustrated as he has missed United's entire pre-season so far.
The former Bayern Munich man has had injections to ease a tendinitis problem that first surfaced last summer, just after his move to Old Trafford.
Having sat out United's pre-season tour to South Africa, it was thought Hargreaves would be available for United's early season games.
That may still be the case given the Reds are not in action again until they visit Liverpool on September 13 but there are bound to be concerns over the £18million man's long-term availability.
Nani has returned from suspension and will play alongside Darren Fletcher in the United midfield tonight with Anderson and Paul Scholes also starting.
Zenit coach Dick Advocaat left Andrei Arshavin on the bench.
UNITED: Van der Sar, Neville, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Fletcher, Anderson, Scholes, Nani, Rooney, Tevez. Subs: Kuszczak, Brown, Park, O'Shea, Gibson, Campbell, Possebon.
Zenit St Petersburg: Malafeev, Krizanac, Aniukov, Puygrenier, Sirl, Zyryanov, Danny, Denisov, Tymoschuk, Pogrebniak, Dominguez. Subs: Contofalsky, Radimov, Kim, Tekke, Arshavin, Shirokov, Faitzulin. Referee: Claus Bo Larsen (Denmark)
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Showing comments 1 to 16 and replies | View All
rck168, Camberley (29/08/2008 at 16:12)
Red Dawn (29/08/2008 at 16:19)
Spurs need a holding player. Offer him as part of the Berbatov deal.
With Scholes, Fletcher, Anderson, Carrick and Possebon, we're well covered in midfield.
TAKIN, strasbourg france (29/08/2008 at 16:21)
Ba Ole (20 Legend), Lusaka, Zambia (29/08/2008 at 17:00)
With Possebon, Campbell and Park coming on to make things interest at the end, we should be in for the second trophy on our way to an unprecedented Septruple.
Neil Mcnab's Moustache, manchester (29/08/2008 at 17:05)
neal 07, south stand lower (29/08/2008 at 17:22)
manu expert (29/08/2008 at 17:22)
Happy Valley Barry, San Francisco, California (29/08/2008 at 17:23)
best players, effective,
committed and skilled. Yet,
we bought him with tendinitis
and it's now proving to be his/our down fall. For all that money spent on Owen and
Saha, you would think our
medical team might have
thought twice about signing
them. Don't get me wrong,
I am a huge fan of both and
wish they were healthy to play week in week out. So it's not sounding crazy when
I say we still need a midfielder, if Scholes goes
down injured Anderson is not
the answer just yet, as great
as he is he gives the ball
away too much, and with Owen watching from the sideline
I feel we definately need a
quality center mid and desperately need a big striker if we're to challenge for the CL and Prem titles again.
Up the Reds,
Lew, Ontario., Canada (29/08/2008 at 18:10)
We should have enough horses to win tonight. Nani is back so we could see him on the right with Evra once again on the left. SCHOLES and Fletcher will do a good job for us in the middle. Nev, Rio and Vidic along with JOS could be the starting back four.
The Berbie situation is mystifying. United have to be close to 25 million pounds for a player who has made it clear he doesn't want to play for SPURS and for whom they will get less than three million next year when he buys out his contract. Let's hope common sense takes over.
danny, WILMSLOW (29/08/2008 at 18:50)
Django, Hampshire (29/08/2008 at 21:03)
You've got to hand it to the Germans. 18m for a guy with an incurable knee injury BEFORE he joined us.
I guess the same club doctor that waved Louis through was on duty at the hospital that day.
For a very professional and incredibly successful organisation, amazingly stupid mistakes are still sometimes made, like being unable to get Rio to attend to an empty bottle on that famous day at Carrington. Ah well! even the best foul up now and again.
Fredrik, Sweden (29/08/2008 at 21:23)
ENGINEER, Heywood (29/08/2008 at 22:44)
joey (30/08/2008 at 10:45)
george (30/08/2008 at 13:17)
keen bgood (01/09/2008 at 01:39)