Sir Alex Ferguson is sweating on the fitness of Wayne Rooney before Manchester United’s visit to Wolverhampton Wanderers tomorrow as Patrice Evra warned that the champions must retain the title to “save the season” from becoming a failure.
Rooney was seen limping out of the Estadio San Mamés on Thursday evening after the striker suffered a knock to a foot in the closing stages of Manchester United’s 2-1 Europa League round-of-16, second-leg defeat by Athletic Bilbao.
Ferguson will assess Rooney’s fitness before deciding whether to include him in his 18-man squad to face Wolves, a game that Evra insists has assumed even greater importance after the club’s elimination from the Europa League — only 3½ months after their premature exit from the Champions League — has left them with only the Barclays Premier League to play for.
Victory will move United four points clear of Manchester City at the top and Evra feels that there is no margin for error after claiming that complacency and a lack of commitment were to blame for their European failings.
“Of course it is a big disappointment to go out of Europe,” the United captain said. “From the beginning of this season it has been a disaster, first in the Champions League and now in the Europa League.
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“I think we have to tell the truth. We never played well and we deserve to go out. We never played in Europe with the same desire that we have shown in the Premier League this season and we have to accept that. Now we have to be focused on the league.
“I’m not worried by the Premier League because we always win well and now we are top and want to make sure we stay in front of Manchester City. It is a massive game against Wolves. We must make sure we win because now the title race becomes a sprint.
“A club of this stature has to concentrate and try to win every competition but now, yes, we don’t have any choice — we have to focus on the league and if we want to save the season we have to win the league, because if we don’t, then we would have had a really bad season.”
Evra believes that United took their Champions League group C opponents — Benfica, Basle and Otelul Galati — too lightly, an issue that they failed to address in the Europa League en route to three defeats in four matches against Ajax and Athletic.
“Maybe we were too confident at the beginning of the Champions League,” he said. “Maybe we were thinking we have the name and we would go through easily and we ended up going out in Basle.
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“It’s been a bad season for Manchester United in Europe and we can’t disagree with that. You can see the difference in the Premier League — we are more focused. We don’t deserve to be in the Champions League or in the Europa League.”