Brown injury adds to England and Manchester United woe

(GETTY IMAGES)

Wes Brown's suspected broken metatarsal has added to Manchester United's injury woes ahead of AC Milan's visit in Champions League on Wednesday.

Brown picked up the injury against Wolves on Saturday and there are concerns that the England defender may have broken his fifth metatarsal, the one that takes the longest to heal.

Although Brown should have recovered in time for the World Cup, the timing is bad for Sir Alex Ferguson with Wayne Rooney doubtful for the Milan game after hurting his knee on England duty last week and Michael Owen out for the season.

Anderson (knee), Ryan Giggs (arm) and John O'Shea (leg) are also out while Jonny Evans missed the Wolves game.

Ferguson has already confirmed Dimitar Berbatov is likely to start against Milan, saying: "Rooney is very doubtful for the Milan game unfortunately. It's one of these bad bits of luck you get - the Wembley pitch has just killed him.

"I was pleased with how Berbatov did against Wolves though and I'll probably start with him on Wednesday."

United have yet to overcome Milan in the Champions League with the Italians always emerging as victors from the two-legged ties, most recently in 2007 when having lost 3-2 in the first leg at Old Trafford, they won 3-0 in the San Siro.

United again have a 3-2 advantage but this time with the away goals counting in their favour, and keeper Edwin van der Sar has warned that they cannot afford to make any mistakes this time.

He told www.manutd.com: "It's not a case of owing Milan one, but we will want to make sure we don't make the same mistakes we did a few years ago when they knocked us out at the semi-final stage.

"They played particularly well in the home leg here when we won 3-2 and Kaka scored two goals. Then at the San Siro, Clarence Seedorf was fantastic - he was excellent in both games actually. But we got a good result in Milan and now we need to finish it off with a magic night at Old Trafford."