Wayne to miss Ewood park visit

Wayne Rooney will miss Sunday's trip to Blackburn Rovers, but should be back for the Manchester derby. The striker made a miraculous recovery from minor ankle ligament damage to start Wednesday's Champions League clash with Bayern Munich, but aggravated the injury during United's defeat to the Germans. He will now sit out the visit to Ewood Park on Sunday, but United boss Sir Alex Ferguson expects him to be available for the trip to Eastlands on 17 April. "I don't think it's as serious as we said when he got the injury the first time, but I think he'll be ready for the City game," he told press at his pre-match press briefing. "We've got more time to work on it, anyway. Other than that, everyone else is fit”.

Following United's midweek exertions against Bayern, Sir Alex says he will freshen up his starting XI for the clash with Sam Allardyce's side."Given the nature of the game on Wednesday and the energy spent, we have to address the situation of freshness," he said. "We've got a squad to use - we have the likes of Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville and we also have John O'Shea back now. He came on against Bayern and did 30 minutes' work - it's good to get him back because he's such a versatile player for us. "Sam Allardyce's team is in fantastic form. Blackburn is always a difficult place to go and they have a good home record. Hopefully we can get the energy back in the team. If we do that we'll be all right.