• Ferguson to oversee review of injury-plagued season
Sir Alex Ferguson says he is very happy with the Glazer family's position as Manchester United owners. Photograph: Bebeto Matthews/AP
Ferguson is so alarmed by the injury record that he has held a series of meetings with the club's medical staff, their conclusion being that several players, Rooney included, are being overworked because of the gruelling demands of combining domestic football with representing their countries. "The big area of concern for us is that we had 16 players who missed more than six weeks through injury," Ferguson said, reflecting on the season just gone and United relinquishing the Premier League title to Chelsea. "We have been looking for the reasons for that ever since the season ended."
His decision is that those members of the squad returning from South Africa this summer – United could have eight players involved, including three-quarters of their usual defence in Ferdinand, Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic – will be given almost a month to recover before even starting their pre-season training.
"The World Cup will be draining for all the players involved," Ferguson said. "It is the biggest tournament of their lives and we will be giving all of the players who are involved a 28-day rest after the last game. We will begin the season without them. That is the plan."
That means in theory that, if England were to reach the final, on 11 July, the players would not be expected to start their training for the new campaign until 8 August, the day the 2010-11 season begins with the Community Shield against Chelsea at Wembley. From that point it may be three weeks before they are considered ready to play, possibly even longer for Ferdinand considering his long-standing back issues, a problem he has been told could flare up at any time.
Ferguson will also be mindful not to rush back Rooney, bearing in mind what happened when he did that towards the end of the season, the striker re-aggravating an ankle injury and then damaging the abductor muscle at the top of his leg.
Ferguson, speaking on the Fan 590 radio station in Toronto while promoting the club's pre-season tour to Canada, the United States and Mexico, went on to reiterate that there were no plans to offload Dimitar Berbatov after a season in which the Bulgarian's form has divided opinion among supporters. "We definitely won't sell Berbatov," he said. "He will be with us next year."
Of possible incomings the United manager argued that the Glazer family were being unfairly accused of not making money available for him in the transfer market. "They have been great owners and there's no reason to think otherwise. They have supported me every time I have asked them and we have already spent £20m on young players. Chris Smalling cost us £10m, [Mame Biram] Diouf was £4m and the Mexican [Javier Hernández] was more than £6m. Because we are not signing signature players people think we are not moving forward – but we are."
Many supporters would dispute this after five years in which the Glazers are calculated to have lost the club £437m in interest payments and other fees but Ferguson said the Florida-based family were running United in a sensible way by not following the pay structure at clubs such as Chelsea and Manchester City.
"There must be concern about the level of salaries in the game," he said. "There's a lot of greed, particularly when owners have come in from Russia, America and the Middle East and there's a need for them to do well. Salary caps are not going to come into their domain; it doesn't enter their thinking."
