Fergie In No Rush With 'The Slave'

'El Slave' Ronaldo has been making pretty rapid progress with his
recovery from surgery on his ankle. So much so that people are
starting to think about a return in maybe two weeks !

Luckily Fergie thinks differently. It would be pretty futile rushing
him back if he was only to break down again one week later. We
would end up with another Balsawood man.

Ferguson has suggested he will be out of action until the beginning
of October.

"If a player is out for a certain period there is no point rushing it.
You may as well wait the extra week or two to make sure they don't
suffer any setbacks.

"Sometimes the age of a player helps with their recovery. Cristiano
may get back quicker. But we are not putting him under any pressure.

"We have to let the physios do their job properly."

"The plan was to give him one month of rehabilitation work, jogging
and aerobic work in the gymnasium. It is difficult to say with young
players and long-term injury but Cristiano is making good progress."

Carrick Going To Wembley

Finally ...

Some good news on the injury front. Then again, with 9 injuries
amongst the squad they can hardly get worse can they ? Appar-
ently Micheal Carrick has recovered sufficiently from the virus
he and Rooney caught to take part on Sunday if needed in the
Charity Shield or Community Shield or whatever name they now
give it. We need a good team out there because we do, after all,
owe Portsmouth a really good whooping !! They seem to think
they can knock us out of the FA Cup at Old Trafford whenever
they like. Joking aside, it was a great result for them and I'm
happy Harry won the Cup.

Fergie spoke to www.manutd.com today regarding Carrick and
said:

"Carrick trained yesterday for the first time and I'm taking him
to Wembley,"

"Hopefully I'll give him some minutes on the pitch. If he is feeling
good then we have to get some minutes on the clock for him ahead
of next week against Newcastle."

Wayne Rooney is now also clear of the virus but he returned to
training only today (Friday) after missing every session since the
Reds returned from Africa on 28 July.

"We have a big job to get him ready for Newcastle," said Sir Alex,
"but with seven or eight days training, we may just make it now.
He's much better and the medical reports are good.

"Gary Neville and Nani are fit and they will travel. Nani will prob-
ably start on Sunday because he is suspended for the first two
league games of the season.

"Owen Hargreaves is not ready. He should be OK for Portsmouth
away (on Monday 25 August), that's the time frame we've put on it.

"Ben Foster had a bit of swelling in his knee which you can some-
times get after a cruciate knee injury. We're trying to manage that
but he's not ready yet to play in games. It's unfortunate for the lad
because he was looking forward to an uninterrupted run."

All in all ... it doesn't look too bad, fingers crossed.