HAS HE? HASN'T HE?

YES: He just wants to show who's boss

Tony Cascarino speaks from experience

Sir Alex Ferguson is the most successful manager in England. At upsetting people. Here is a quick roll of honour: Jaap Stam, Roy Keane, Paul Ince, Fabien Barthez, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Brian Kidd, David Beckham. Ferguson could be about to add Wayne Rooney to the list.

Everyone knows that you do not mess with Fergie. Except that it seems as though everyone does. We know that he is ruthless, dictatorial, domineering and ultra-powerful. Players have told me how intimidating and extreme he can be. But come on, how many confrontations does he want? It is a management style that threatens to have a negative impact on Rooney and therefore on England. If doctors are ready to tell Rooney that he can go to Germany, but Ferguson is insisting that he stays, there could be trouble.

Michael Stone, the doctor who has just left Manchester United, worked for the club for ten years, but that counts for nothing. In whatever disagreement that is alleged to have caused his departure, perhaps he was in the right and Ferguson was wrong. Probably, even — unless Ferguson has secretly amassed a vast amount of medical knowledge that we are not aware of.

Complications set in because Rooney is stuck in the middle. A player's desperation to represent his country can and will override rational judgment. If his doctor tells him that he is fit but his manager tells him that he is not, it is obvious who he will want to believe.

Rooney is United's key player. Ferguson knows how vital he is to the club's success. He would be inwardly fuming if Rooney overrode his orders and went to Germany. He would be spitting nails. But he would have to take it because he cannot afford a rift with his star player. Just like he ignored some ranting and raving from Keane while he was the heart of United's midfield; when his captain's performances worsened, when he was expendable, Keane's temper was no longer tolerated.

United versus England, doctors versus doctors; in the end, it may all come down to Ferguson versus Rooney. What a row that might be; what deep consequences it might have. Standing up to his boss could make the kid into a man.

NO: United manager is right to protect club's interests

Mick Hume wants his hero to be fully fit, not limping around

Some of us Manchester United season ticket-holders might not agree with Sir Alex Ferguson about much these days, but the Scots curmudgeon is right about Wayne Rooney.

He was right that paying twenty-odd million for a teenager was a bargain. He was right last week that “the boy” should not go to the World Cup “half-fit or even three-quarters fit”. And he is surely right to expect everyone at Old Trafford, from the directors to the club doctor, to put United's interests first.

I am praying as hard as the next atheist that Rooney's scan delivers good news today. I have a plane seat and a friend's spare bed (although no match ticket) booked for England's first game in Frankfurt, but I may not bother unless Rooney goes, too.

Rooney is a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon and whoever replaces him will be no substitute. But when Ferguson reminds England that Rooney is also “the most important player at Manchester United” and admits that he is “selfish” about ensuring “the boy is going to be fit at the start of the season for us”, I admit that I am on his side.

Ferguson cited the case of David Beckham, who played in the 2002 World Cup soon after breaking a metatarsal. The image of England's captain jumping out of a challenge in the quarter-finals, a surrender that led to Brazil's equaliser, remains the abiding memory of Beckham's limp contribution to that campaign. Better for England to be reconciled to Rooney's loss beforehand than to have half of our hero hobbling around. His age at least means that there will be a next time, and a time after that.

But taking off the St George's Cross sunglasses, Ferguson's United-centric selfishness also strikes a visceral chord. When I was growing up in the 1970s, it was normal to put club before country. Opinion polls showed that, given the choice, most English football fans would want their club to win the championship (which did not, in those days, mean the second division) more than they wanted England to win the World Cup.

Some of us, however, still wear the colours of the old school. I recall the cries of “Stick your England up you're a**e!” that rang around Old Trafford during the national witch-hunt against Beckham after his sending-off in the 1998 World Cup. We don't want the best English player ever seen in a United shirt doing himself a mischief in an England shirt this summer.

So if there is any doubt, it should be a case of “for you, Wayne, the World Cup is over”. Gary Neville insists that everyone at United wants Rooney to play in Germany because “they're a fair club”. No doubt. But United need Rooney fit if they want to be more than a fair-to-middling club next season.