Fabio Capello, the England manager, has been assured that Wayne Rooney's ankle injury should not be regarded as a serious threat to his participation in this summer's World Cup.
While the expectation is that Rooney could miss most of Manchester United's title run-in, Capello's initial concerns have been eased during a series of telephone calls between the medical staff for Sir Alex Ferguson's team and their counterparts at the Football Association.
Rooney's employers, on Ferguson's instructions, are refusing to make any official pronouncements until the manager's press conference on Friday.
But various messages have been sent to Capello to let him know that, unless anything more serious is diagnosed in the scans, Rooney is facing a lay-off of up to four weeks and will have recovered fully, with time to spare, before the pre-World Cup friendlies against Japan and Mexico next month.