Becks injures more than himself

Your mid 30s are apparently a key time for your Achilles to snap my doctor friend tells me. And three to four months is the usual time before you can start running again. Realistically it's about half a year for footballers to get back into action it seems. Funny how soccer fans suddenly become 'experts' on metatarsals, cruciate ligaments et al.

So while Fabio Capello can cross another off his 23-man list, LA should see Beckham back later on this season. Of course it means some financial loss to MLS and Grant Wahl will have to rewrite the second edition of his book, which is being released shortly. I've thought for some time MLS must move on from the Beckham hype, useful as it was at the time.

Damn these injuries just before a World Cup - Davies, Holden, Beckham...we want to see the best players on the biggest stage every time. It's like an invisible serial killer stalking the dressing rooms - remember how Cory Gibbs got crocked while taking a shower?

Beckham looked like an old war horse at Old Trafford last week, compared to the young stallion of Wayne Rooney, but no-one English drops crosses onto forwards' heads like he does and England aren't blessed with curling set-piece specialists either. He hadn't done much for the Three Lions at the World Cup since passing to Michael Owen against Argentina in 1998, a free-kick against Ecuador in 2006 apart, but he was a useful impact sub and a patriotic lion of a motivator for the others.

England fans are probably more concerned Ashley Cole and Aaron Lennon get fit, and if Wayne Rooney goes down too before June, expect all of this country to commit harakiri together.

But hey, a Beckham-less World Cup means one less WAG.

- Sean O'Conor, London