Manchester United boss Alex Ferguson has confirmed that centre-back Wes Brown will be missing for up to two months with a knee injury. Brown missed last night's 3-0 Champions League victory over Boavista at Old Trafford after sustaining the injury during training on Monday. However, the problem is not as serious as first feared when it had been thought the defender could miss the rest of the season. "It's his medial ligaments and I think he will be out for six weeks to two months," explained Ferguson.
Brown's injury could cause a selection headache for Ferguson after Laurent Blanc broke his noise against Boavista last night and Gary Neville injured his groin. Ronny Johnsen and David May are also sidelined through injury.
David Beckham also missed last night's game amid rumours he had been dropped but Ferguson revealed afterwards that he left the England skipper out of his team because he has a slight back injury. "I think he's had a long season and I think that can take its toll," said the United boss. "He has been bothered with a back injury and sometimes we have to arrest that before it gets any worse."
However, despite all his injury worries, Ferguson was delighted by last night's comprehensive win. "It was a good, disciplined performance. The key was we never made any mistakes in the match. A lot of it was simple football and the first goal in particular was a good goal. Once we got in front we looked like we were going to win. The key to any defence is not making mistakes and I think we have been blighted by individual mistakes the whole season. Tonight the unit was very solid and there were no mistakes and I was very pleased by that," he said.
United now go into the winter break joint top of Group A with Bayern Munich on four points, much to Ferguson's delight. "We're in a good position now with Bayern having to play Boavista twice and hopefully they are going to eat each other up. Hopefully we can get something out of the Nantes matches and this definitely puts us in a terrific position," he added.
Filed by Amanda Fennelly
