Paul Scholes will miss Manchester United's Premiership encounter with Southampton this afternoon at St Mary's Stadium.
Although no decision has yet been made on whether Scholes will require surgery on the hernia problem which United boss Sir Alex Ferguson believes was exacerbated on England duty earlier this month, the 28-year-old has been ruled out of today's clash.
It means Scholes will almost certainly not be in Sven-Goran Eriksson's squad for the forthcoming Euro 2004 qualifiers against Macedonia and Liechtenstein.
If Scholes does require surgery, he will also miss United's crunch Premiership clash with title rivals Arsenal on September 21 and could also sit out England's vital visit to Turkey at the beginning of October.
Ferguson has not been happy at the way Scholes' injury was handled by the England camp after he informed the Football Association of the problem before his midfielder joined up with the party for the friendly win over Croatia."We told the FA about it but they still played him for an hour," said Ferguson.
"He came back in a real state and we will have to decide whether he needs an operation," added Ferguson after Wednesday's win over Wolves.