Sir Alex Ferguson has confirmed Wayne Rooney will be available for Manchester United's trip to Newcastle on Wednesday but warned that the striker needs to make sure he is looking after his fitness. Rooney was fined a week's wages and dropped from the United team for Saturday's defeat by Blackburn Rovers because of his performance in training last Tuesday.
United's coaching staff considered him "lethargic" and worse for wear and Ferguson decided disciplinary action was necessary after discovering the England striker had been on a Boxing Day night out with his team-mates Darron Gibson and Jonny Evans. "You've got to be fit to play in the Premier League," Ferguson explained in an interview with Sirius XM. "You can't miss training sessions."
Ferguson has also made Rooney train on a scheduled day off and, behind the scenes, he has made it clear in no uncertain terms what he makes of the player's attitude. He went on to raise the possibility that Rooney might not be in good physical condition – "We had a few training sessions [over the Christmas period] he missed" – but was unwilling to elaborate other than to say the forward would "of course" be included for Newcastle.
The United manager said Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs would both have late fitness tests to see if they could play but the champions are still badly affected by injury and illness problems.
"We're trying hard to get Rio Ferdinand for [Wednesday] and Ryan Giggs which would make a good difference to us," said Ferguson. "Anderson should be better, he had 45 minutes on Saturday [since injury in November]. There are no other ones to come back immediately. And Wayne Rooney will be available of course.
"We're getting a lot of impact injuries, contact injuries. Maybe the way we play creates that because we're always wanting to have the ball and we're always wanting to play."