Neville is first casualty

One Manchester United player flew back to England from their pre-season tour of the United States last night but contrary to expectations it was not Juan Sebastian Veron.

While the Argentinian's advisers emerged from negotiations with Chelsea to announce the transfer was "very, very close", Gary Neville was on his way home with an injury, leaving Alex Ferguson with only four fit defenders for the start of the season.

Neville has pulled a hamstring and will need at least three weeks to recover. As well as missing the Community Shield against Arsenal on Sunday week, and United's opening Premiership match at home to Bolton the following weekend, he will be unavailable for England's friendly with Croatia on August 19th.

Sven-Goran Eriksson, the England coach, will probably recall Danny Mills, but Ferguson's options are more limited. In the wake of Laurent Blanc's retirement and Wes Brown's knee operation, the only recognised defenders are Phil Neville, Rio Ferdinand, John O'Shea and Mikael Silvestre.

Neville's diagnosis was relayed to Ferguson at the end of a training session at Rutgers University's 52,000-capacity stadium, during which the club's travelling fans repeatedly sang Veron's name.

Despite the seeming inevitability of the Argentinian's departure, Ferguson later claimed he wanted him to stay and announced that he would be in United's team for the friendly against Juventus at the Giants stadium in the early hours of tomorrow morning.

When informed that Veron's agent Fernando Hidalgo had claimed the deal would be finalised within 24 hours, Ferguson chose his words carefully.

"That's going to be difficult. He's in my team and there are no plans to send him home. I want him to stay and Seba has said that, too."

The truth may be somewhat different, with United's directors acknowledging the deal could "happen any day now".

It is inconceivable that the board would contemplate selling a player if Ferguson had strong objections, and Veron's availability for around £15 million has been an open secret in Europe for several weeks.

Chelsea, meanwhile, will not halt at Veron and have also inquired about PSV's Mark van Bommel. Pini Zahavi - who has acted for the Londoners in all their major deals this summer - has contacted the Dutch champions but they insisted on being shown "guarantees" of the agent's official status at Chelsea before issuing their demands, thought to be about £10 million.

"The ambitions of the club (Chelsea), as I see them, are looking great," the Dutch midfielder said yesterday.

Chelsea's first choices for a defensive midfielder are still thought to be Patrick Vieira, who has yet to sign a new contract with Arsenal, or Roma's Brazil captain Emerson, but Van Bommel would be an acceptable fall-back.