Sir Alex Ferguson has ruled out the chance of Wayne Rooney prematurely returning from injury for Manchester United.
The England striker has been sidelined since he received a nasty gash on his inner thigh against Fulham on August 25 but was hoping to make a comeback prior to his initial return date.
However, Ferguson has put a dampener on that by suggesting Rooney won't be back until next weekend's home clash with Tottenham whilst also ruling out winger Ashley Young for a further three weeks as he nurses a bruised cartilage in his knee.
"We have everyone available who was available last Wednesday (against Galatasaray)," said Ferguson ahead of Sunday's trip to Liverpool.
"I know there were reports in the paper about Rooney being possible, but that is not the case. He's not far away, I think he may be fine for next week.
"He's doing a lot of great training and has been working hard. It's just a matter of getting him into the full football training side of things, which he has done part of.
"Ashley Young has got a bruised cartilage - I think it's going to take two or three weeks more. We're just taking our time with that one. You can easily play with it and train but we're not going down that road, we want to make sure he's okay.
"We get a lot of experiences these days of these injuries reoccurring when they come back too quickly and we don't want that with the players - we want to give them a full recovery. He should be okay with two or three weeks' time."
