Manchester United striker Michael Owen is wary of the Wembley pitch ahead of the Community Shield clash with Chelsea.
Owen will play 45 minutes in the game, confirmed manager Sir Alex Ferguson today.
"I was at Wembley a week ago and they were out on the pitch installing this new thing, which means 10% of the turf is now synthetic," said Owen, who missed any chance of playing in the World Cup as a result of his six-month lay-off.
"Hopefully it makes it a lot better, because I wasn't the only injury to come out of that game and we don't want the same to happen again. There were quite a lot of other injured players and that is the worrying bit. If it was just me then you could say it was a freak accident. But the pitch must have had something to do with it because there were loads of injuries that either came out of that game or the one a few days later for England [the 3-1 win against Egypt]."
