Wayne Rooney has suffered a knee injury, Manchester United boss\u00a0Louis van Gaal has confirmed.<\/p>\n
The Dutchman\u00a0refused\u00a0to confirm the time-frame on his\u00a0captain’s absence, although\u00a0it is understood that he\u00a0will be out for up to six weeks.<\/p>\n
His absence will deal\u00a0United a heavy blow in their pursuit of a top-four finish in the Premier League.<\/p>\n
Reports emerged on Wednesday afternoon suggesting the forward\u00a0was facing up to two months on the sidelines\u00a0after being omitted from the\u00a0squad to face\u00a0Midtjylland in the Europa League.<\/p>\n
Van Gaal said in his pre-match press conference: “We have 13 players injured and Wayne is one of them.<\/p>\n
“It’s difficult to say but he’s injured in the game versus Sunderland and has a knee problem. We have to wait and see how long that takes. I cannot say.<\/p>\n
“He scores a lot of goals so he is very important for us. We know that but we have to cope with that.<\/p>\n
“Certainly in 2016, he has scored and that’s why we had a good run in matches until Sunderland. But we have to cope with that. Everybody can be injured and also the captain can be injured.”<\/p>\n
If Rooney is facing a sustained period on the sidelines, it will be a significant setback both to his club and country.<\/p>\n
United are currently fifth in the Premier League, six points adrift of fourth-placed Manchester City with 12 rounds of top-flight fixtures to go.<\/p>\n
And Van Gaal, whose position has been under increasing scrutiny, admitted after Saturday’s 2-1 loss at Sunderland that winning the Europa League was looking the most viable route into theChampions League for his side.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, England have a double-header of international friendlies next month against Germany and Holland as they continue their preparations for this summer’s Euro 2016 finals.<\/p>\n
Three Lions head coach Roy Hodgson said on Saturday that skipper Rooney – England’s all-time record goalscorer – will be ”a player we need to depend upon” at the tournament in France.<\/p>\n
Rooney has netted three times in four appearances for England this season, and is United’s top scorer this term with 14 goals in all competitions.<\/p>\n
Matteo Darmian (dislocated shoulder), Marouane Fellaini (muscle fatigue) and Cameron Borthwick-Jackson (illness) are also unavailable for United on Thursday.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: Talksport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wayne Rooney has suffered a knee injury, Manchester United boss\u00a0Louis van Gaal has confirmed. The Dutchman\u00a0refused\u00a0to confirm the time-frame on his\u00a0captain’s absence, although\u00a0it is understood that he\u00a0will be out for up to six weeks. His absence will deal\u00a0United a heavy blow in their pursuit of a top-four finish in the Premier League. Reports emerged on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=191001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=191001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=191001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=191001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}