Rooney ruled out for four weeks

SOCCER:Alex Ferguson will be forced into a comprehensive change of plan after Wayne Rooney's ankle injury in training yesterday ruled the Manchester United striker out of contention for four weeks.

Rooney had been in breathtaking form for United, his seven goals in the last seven games netting him the player of the month award for October.

His partnership with Carlos Tevez had helped United to 22 goals in six games, and had allowed Ferguson to treat Louis Saha with kid gloves, keeping him in a substitute's role to protect his delicate knee.

Earlier in the day Ferguson had been crowing about having his strongest squad of the season to choose from against Blackburn on Sunday.

Now he will have to have a major rethink about his striking plans for matches ahead against Blackburn in particular, and then Premier League strugglers Bolton, Fulham and Derby.

Ferguson had praised Rooney's form and expressed his belief that Saha was currently at his most effective on the bench. He said: "Wayne had an injury to begin with and that knocked him back a bit as he missed four or five games.

"We expect players of his ability, young players like him and Ronaldo, to develop and improve themselves. They got 23 goals each last year and I think they are capable of getting more than that this year."

On Saha he added: "We are trying to manage the situation he finds himself in terms of his knee condition so we don't play him in every game and the dilemma is do we start him or do we bring him on.

"If you look at the composition of our side now he is different to everyone else so he makes a bigger impact as a substitute. At the moment my inclination is to use him as a sub and he is fine with that."

Rooney should be back in time for United's trip to Liverpool on December 16th.Rooney will also be unavailable for England's friendly with Austria next week and the Euro 2008 qualifier against Croatia at Wembley on November 21st.

Meanwhile, United have agreed a deal with Burnley to sign 14-year-old starlet John Cofie. One of Steve Cotterill's last acts as Burnley manager before leaving this week was to fend off a reported €350,000 bid from Liverpool for the striker.

However, with Cofie, a German-born Ghanaian who has also been coveted by Chelsea, refusing to return for training with the Turf Moor outfit, his departure was inevitable and a meeting of the Burnley hierarchy agreed United was the best place for the youngster to continue his development.

Although it will be three years before Cofie can even sign professional terms for United, Burnley have driven a hard bargain, gaining agreement from the Premier League champions to face them in a friendly, plus a 25 per cent sell-on clause and first refusal should the teenager leave Old Trafford on loan.

Burnley operational director Brendan Flood said: "He was going to go to one of the clubs chasing his signature and in the end, we all felt that Manchester United was the right option."

The deal comes in a week when Ferguson restated his commitment to producing young talent, claiming he was happy to abide by new Fifa rules which set down limits for the number of non domestically-raised players each team can have in their squads.

Ferguson yesterday revealed that United rejected a request to play Everton at 8pm on Christmas Eve as "a non-starter".

The club were approached by television company Setanta, who are screening the match live, to move the kick-off to the night before Christmas but it was dismissed out of hand.

Ferguson said: "The club were asked to play and it was a non-starter. Who wants to play on Christmas Eve? The players will be wanting to get their Christmas presents out for their children. That was an easy one to decide."

United will now play the match at noon on December 23rd.