Despite talk from the United camp a couple of weeks ago that it wasn’t a hernia it has now been confirmed as a double hernia, which will require a six-to-eight week recovery period after Saturday’s operation.
Sir Bobby explained: "He's been to see a specialist and he's going through a hernia operation on Saturday morning.
"It's a double hernia operation, actually. They're going to do both sides, so we can forget about him for several weeks, which is a blow to us.
"He played so well on Saturday after not spending too much time on the training ground, but I liked his performance - he was a Rolls-Royce, he strolled it.
"But unfortunately in training, he felt quite a lot of pain in the lower regions, not where he's had the strained stomach muscle.
“Derek Wright examined him and told me he felt sure it was a positive hernia, so we've had him (visit a specialist) in Manchester and it's confirmed, so he goes through an operation on Saturday."
Interestingly many of the papers focused on the fact that he would miss England’s game against Turkey next month. What they actually should have said is he now misses a pointless trip to Istanbul to sit on the bench as Sven-Goran Eriksson again sticks with his out-of-form favourites at the back, who will probably gift the opposition a one-goal half-time lead. Again