- Community Shield
Moyes confirms Rooney left out
David Moyes has confirmed that Wayne Rooney has been left out of Manchester United's Community Shield squad, officially because of a shoulder injury.
Although Rooney has trained with the reserves this week he missed Rio Ferdinand's testimonial against Sevilla at Old Trafford on Friday, ostensibly because of the injury. He has yet to feature in a first-team game in pre-season.
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Rumours that there was more to this than meets the eye grew when he was included in the squad for England's friendly against Scotland at Wembley on Wednesday.
Those were fuelled when Rooney had used his Facebook account to thank Hodgson for his "faith and support" adding: "Can't wait to join up with the England squad and hopefully play in a competitive match, they always are against Scotland. Big thanks to Roy Hodgson for selecting me and showing his faith and support, appreciate it."
As Rooney will have known the post would be widely read and interpreted as a dig at David Moyes it seems unlikely it was accidental.
But Hodgson has said that he believes Rooney is physically fit, and now Moyes insists he has no gripes over Rooney's England call-up.
"I am pleased about that [Rooney's call-up]. I had a long conversation with Roy last week about it and told him Wayne's situation," Moyes told the club's official website.
"Wayne has had a shoulder injury which has meant he has not been able to have any contact and it has been sore, so he hasn't trained with us. He has trained a little bit with the reserves as a non-contact player, a floating player, so he has at least got a little bit of football work done.
"He trained with the first team on Saturday and did a bit of extra work [afterwards], so he is probably more likely to be ready for England than he will be for us.
"He hasn't had a lot of football practice which I explained to Roy and I would only expect Roy to play him for a short time.
"Hopefully Wayne is not in too good form because it would be good if Scotland could get a result!"
Moyes also confirmed that Ashley Young and Nani will not take part at Wembley. Robin van Persie, Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra are all expected to return after missing the defeat to Sevilla.