United defender Mikael Silvestre will be absent in October as he
nurses a metatarsal injury.
Assistant manager Carlos Queiroz confirmed the bad news on Friday,
when he briefed the media ahead of this weekend's match against
Newcastle.
"Mikael Silvestre's injury is more serious than we thought," said
Carlos. "It's something in his metatarsal and he'll be out for six
weeks."
Queiroz also said that Darren Fletcher and midweek match-winner
Louis Saha have minor problems but both should be fit to face the
Magpies on Sunday.
Better news comes through the recuperation of Ryan Giggs, who has
started jogging as he bids to shake off a hamstring injury.
"Hes started individual runs, not with the team," revealed Carlos.
"We think hell be fine for Wigan. Hes doing well, his recovery
process is nothing special and everythings ok."
Queiroz feels that, regardless of which players feature on Sunday,
both sets of fans can expect the traditional bout of goals and
excitement against Glenn Roeder's Magpies.
"As far as I remember, Newcastle against Manchester always results
in great, spectacular games with lots of goals," he said. "No
matter which players are playing on Sunday for Newcastle or for us,
it will be showtime for sure. Its always like that."
Carlos is well aware of the need to return to winning ways
domestically, after dropping points in the last two weekends
against Arsenal and Reading.
"At the moment its not important to think about Chelsea, Liverpool
or Arsenal," he said. "Its important to know we cannot drop
points, especially in some games. Everybody knows that.
"Game after game were going to fight as much as we can and fight
as much as we can not to lose points as we did at Reading."
With Wayne Rooney continuing to attract media scrutiny after four
games without a goal, Carlos revealed that the striker has been
undertaking extra training to rediscover his form.
"Its good that the player is conscious of his mistakes," he said.
"Because what happens the day after is they come in with a better
and a bigger desire to work more and more.
"This is what happened today. Wayne stayed for a while working
alone, because he knows he needs to do something. But game after
game, those things start to come right.
"Then the motivation and the confidence start to grow up, and he
will establish his old game. This is what we believe will happen in
the next game."