New knee injury ends van Nistelrooy's year

Ruud van Nistelrooy will miss at least the next eight months for PSV Eindhoven after injuring his knee again.

Manchester United have been proved right in their fitness assessment of van Nistelrooy after the player suffered a second injury of the season to his medial ligaments in the right knee at training this morning.

British television has carried pictures of PSV's training session today showing van Nistelrooy falling after attempting a header and screaming in pain as his right knee gave way.

The 23 year old - who was set for a £19 million move to Manchester United on Tuesday - may now miss Euro 2000 after scans at a local hospital revealed severe damage to the knee joint muscles but the medial ligament was not involved so the player has suffered a new injury entirely.. He will undergo further surgery after an operation earlier today.

PSV gave details yesterday of United's plan for the striker to have another knee operation after van Nistelrooy failed to pass a medical to complete a transfer.

The player injured himself attempting a bicycle kick in a friendly seven weeks ago. He had been expected to return to full fitness in time for the Euro finals where as top scorer in the Dutch league for the past two seasons he was set to understudy Patrick Kluivert in the Dutch national squad. He now misses those finals.

PSV and the player refused United's stipulation that he must undergo another operation on the medial knee ligament. He returned to training with PSV last week but was still only doing light jogging work and was a month away from match fitness.

High insurance levels for the striker - who has suffered previously with ligament injuries - could have pushed the cost of his transfer to United as high as £22 million with United unsure of their investment.

Another complication for the new Premiership champions came from the strained relationship between manager Ferguson and chairman Martin Edwards over the van Nistelrooy affair.

Edwards gave surprisingly explicit interviews at the start of the week outlining his view that Ferguson would need to trim his squad of at least one striker if United went through with van Nistelrooy's purchase. The club are devoting massive funds towards the rebuilding of Old Trafford and Edwards claims Fergusson's transfer budget is not much more than £20 million for he summer unless he starts to sell off players.

Ferguson has called van Nistelrooy the best striker of his age in the world but may now revive a 1998 plan to sign Gabriel Batistuta from Fiorentina.

The career of van Nistelrooy has crashed in the space of three days.

He left Manchester on Wednesday still believing his transfer to United could go through if he passed a fitness test but insurance complications meant that the English club needed more evidence of strength in his right knee. At a press conference yesterday he was adamant that his knee had healed properly but the new injury has put him out of action for months and keep him well away from a frenzied summer transfer market in Europe.

The highly rated player must start again next season with PSV and try to re-establish both fitness and his massive transfer tag.