More air to Rooney fire, with oxygen chamber

Rooney injured himself in United’s 0-3 defeat at Chelsea on Saturday and the striker is struggling to be fit in time for England’s first match against Paraguay on June 10.

United plan to issue no further statements on Rooney’s recovery but Ferguson struck a cautiously optimistic note when he said: “The break he has got in the fourth metatarsal is a small fracture. The one slightly above it is nothing to worry about at all. It does not affect the recovery. There is no damage there at all. It’s just a slight feeling.”

He added: “We will do our very best to get him there. It’s in our interests as well as England’s to do that. We all need to wait and see how he develops and improves when we do the next scans but we will give him every chance.

“We are giving the boy treatment. We want him on the plane if he can. The scan will tell you everything in a few weeks’ time. If it’s healed then we’ve got the progress we want.”

Even if the shoe pinches a bit…

AMSTERDAM: Nike is not planning to make any changes to the design of its ‘90 Supremacy’ football boot, which England striker Wayne Rooney was wearing when he broke his foot last week. Responding to intense media scrutiny from the British press, and Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson’s request that Nike take another look at the boot to make sure that it did not play any part in the injury, Nike said it was not to blame for Rooney’s multiple bone fractures. “I think it is very convenient to blame the shoe,” Nike spokesman Charlie Brooks said. If he hurt his hamstring we would not be talking about the shorts he was wearing,” Brooks said. Still, Brooks said that Nike would take feedback from Manchester United, as they do on a constant basis. Research and development on the shoe took two years, he said. Rooney is not the first English player to injure himself at a critical juncture. David Beckham broke a metatarsal in his foot before the 2002 World Cup, but still played in the games.