Roy Keane's participation in Saturday's first leg of Ireland's World Cup play-off against Iran was in fresh doubt last night after Alex Ferguson admitted that he only expects his skipper to take part in one of the forthcoming international matches.
Ferguson again described Keane's knee injury as no more than "niggling" but said that if it wasn't entirely sorted out at this point, it could get much worse, and keep the midfielder out for some time to come.
He confirmed that "because of the Ireland game Roy has started light jogging" and added that "I think he will make one of the games, I think that will happen."
Mick McCarthy subsequently admitted that he can do little more at this point than monitor the news reports regarding the situation at Old Trafford; but he added that, at this stage, he would settle for being able to include Keane in his plans for Thursday week's second leg in Tehran.
There was disappointing news for McCarthy on other fronts too, over the weekend, with Kevin Kilbane, Mark Kennedy and Steven Reid all now looking more doubtful than they did last Friday.
Kilbane, said to have been making steady progress by Sunderland all through last week, ended up missing out completely on his club's defeat by Leicester on Saturday as his ankle injury continued to trouble him.
And Kennedy, now looks set to be out of action until Saturday week when Wolves are due to play Sheffield Wednesday. The Dubliner has a hamstring problem which will be examined by a specialist over the coming days.
The former Millwall, Liverpool and Manchester City player had already been more or less ruled out of Saturday's first leg; but there is currently little sign of him making the progress required to figure in McCarthy's plans for the away game either.
All of which would have been bad enough without the news that Steven Reid, McCarthy's most obvious alternative to the injured pair on the left, is himself suffering from back trouble.
The young Millwall midfielder failed a fitness test during the build-up to the club's game with Coventry on Saturday and now joins the list of doubtfuls ahead of the squad's get together in Dublin this evening and tomorrow morning.
While none of the players carrying injuries last week appear to have improved their prospects of playing next Saturday, there was at least some relief for McCarthy in that no significant new problems seemed to emerge over the weekend.
Players like Mark Kinsella, Steve Finnan and Jason McAteer all played 90 mins for their clubs; while Niall Quinn came on for Sunderland on Saturday and there was no word last night of any surprise withdrawals.
