Rooney Set To Miss Out Again!

Wayne Rooney has suffered another hairline fracture to his left foot, almost certainly ruling him out of England's Autumn Euro 2008 qualifiers.

Rooney was injured on Sunday as Manchester United met Reading in a goalless start to the season. There has been no official time scale put on the injury by Man U but reports suggest he could be out for the next 6 to 8 weeks. In 2004 Rooney missed 3 months after a foot injury and a similar one this time will see him miss all of England's remaining qualifiers. He will certainly miss England's friendly against Germany at Wembley next Wednesday.

McLaren and the England Squad will already be worried about the striker's fitness for the home qualifier against Israel on 8th September; and then the match against Russia on the 12th. They are hoping that he will be fit though for the qualifiers against Estonia on the 13th October and then away in Russia on the 17th.

England are already facing a struggle to qualify as they sit at the bottom of group E and need to be placed in the top 2 spots to get to the finals.

Reading defender Michael Duberry accidentally trod on Rooney's foot just before half time at Old Trafford on Sunday. This injury is just one of the many that plague Mclaren and the England team. Almost every player is either injured or recovering from an injury. Beckham has yet to play a full game for Galaxy, Terry is still suffering from his knee ligament damage and the of the strikers Owen is injured still and Crouch, Defoe and Brent were all on their respective benches on the weekend. To name but a few.

Rooney was injured when England met Portugal in the quarter-final on 24 June at Euro 2004 and was subsequently injured for 96 days afterwards. Then the same thing happened again against Chelsea in 2006 while he was playing for Man U.

Rooney was replaced by the United winger Nani in the second half against Reading, and Ferguson was forced to move defender John O'Shea into the striker position.