Manchester United and England have been dealt a serious blow after Owen Hargreaves, the midfield player, was ruled out for another month through injury.

Hargreaves has been plagued by tendinitis since the summer and after reporting more discomfort in training yesterday, he had an injection administered to his knee in an attempt to cure the longstanding problem.

The news overshadowed United’s 1-0 Champions League victory at home to AS Roma last night and means that Hargreaves will miss England’s crucial Euro 2008 qualifying matches against Estonia at Wembley on Saturday week and away to Russia four days later.

It is yet another setback for Steve McClaren, the England head coach, who is already without Emile Heskey and, most probably, Gary Neville and David Beckham. The fitness of Frank Lampard and Michael Owen is another continuing concern.

Sir Alex Ferguson ruled out an operation for Hargreaves, but it is unclear whether the injection is merely a short-term solution. Hargreaves has made only three starts for United since his £20.2 million move from Bayern Munich in the summer and has been out of action since September 1. “Owen has had an injection in his knee and he will be out for three to four weeks,” the United manager said. “This is an option we had from the very start. If it resurfaced again, we said we would do that so he’s had an injection to try and curb the tendinitis. He felt it in training [on Tuesday] so we decided to do something about it.”

Ferguson could at least smile about a result that, while fortuitous, leaves United in pole position to qualify from group F, although, having used all their substitutes, they were forced to play the final seven minutes, including stoppage time, with ten men after Cristiano Ronaldo was left needing four stitches to a cut above his eye after being caught by an elbow from Mirko Vucinic, the Roma forward.

Roma had apparently been incensed by Ronaldo’s comments before the match that one of the Italian side’s players had begged for mercy during the team’s 7-1 defeat at Old Trafford last season and there appeared to be some intent from Vucinic.

“I didn’t see it, but Ronaldo himself said he was elbowed,” Ferguson said. “He has had four stitches in his eyebrow. It’s unfortunate because the game was played in a good spirit. There was never anything really untoward in the match.”