Rooney playing in carpet slippers with the soles of hobnail boots?

Sir Alex Ferguson says that he's satisfied that United are happy with Rooney's lightweight Nike football boots. However, Rooney has suffered two foot injuries and some people have blamed the lightweight boots as a probable cause of the injuries.

Fergie has stated that this latest injury was caused by Michael Duberry falling heavily on the England strikers foot and that Rooney and all the United stars are playing with boots which have reinforced soles.

From the outside looking in I for one cannot agree with Fergie's thinking, if the players are wearing what are little more than carpet slippers which have reinforced soles, then surely it's the upper part of the boot which needs the reinforcement and not just the soles.

If an oponent like Duberry comes down heavily on your foot with reinforced soles then surely this has the potential to end in a foot injury as keeps on happening to our top players.

These metatarsal injuries were never heard of until recently, what's more football pitches have improved greatly over the last decade and players from the past should surely picked up many more foot injuries playing on inferior surfaces - but that did not happen.

We never heard of Bobby Charlton, Denis Law, George Best, Eric Cantona or Bryan Robson picking up metatarsal injuries, therfore the problem must point towards these lightweight boots which clearly do not offer enough protection to the foot.

United and Rooney are paying a very heavy price for what are seemingly carpet slippers which have the soles of hobnail boots.