IF Fabio Capello does not dye his hair then he might soon have to as each passing week, nay each passing game, yields nerve-shredding injury worries for the national football coach in advance of this summer’s World Cup.

With left-back Ashley Cole still battling against a broken ankle, striker Jermain Defoe on the Spurs’ walking wounded list and central defender and skipper Rio Ferdinand seemingly a sneeze away from a spell on the sidelines, Capello’s greatest fear flared in the prostrate frame of Wayne Rooney.

As he lay beating the turf of the Allianz Arena, stricken with a twisted ankle as hosts Bayern Munich scored a stoppage-time winner in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final with Manure, ahem sorry Manchester United, Capello’s worst nightmare looked to have been cruelly realised.

Ever since England qualified in such emphatic style for a South African summer of Jules Rimet dreaming, the dread has been any sort of injury to inflict itself upon Rooney, England’s truly lone world-class talent.

Calls made to wrap him up in cotton wool are as numerous as they are frankly, ludicrous. After all, Manure are his employers, they pay his wages and, as he has been scoring goals for fun this season to spearhead the Red Devils’ assault on adding the Premier League title and the Champions League crown to the Carling Cup, they have every right to have first dibs, even exclusive-only dibs, on the Roo-meister.

So as he hobbled out of Bayern’s ground on crutches, his right foot encased in the obligatory plastic boot, and then wobbled into not one, but two hospital scans back in Manchester, a nation held its collective breath.

Mounting trepidation was fuelled by the inevitable hyped-up hullabaloo of Sky Sports.

Just like his previous metatarsal injury and that self-same pre-tournament injury suffered by David Beckham two World Cups ago, Sky went into overdrive, each medical bulletin and physiotherapist’s analysis delivered with the sort of reverence that more properly accompanies a state funeral or passing of a Pope.

The fact Rooney’s eventual injury was diagnosed as minor ligament damage in the ankle somewhat sliced open Sky’s over-zealous treatment of the story.

It is now expected that Rooney’s absence from action will be anything from two to four weeks, thereby ushering into oblivion dismay that his damaged foot may rule him out of the World Cup.

That prognosis is arguably the best news Signor Capello, and England supporters too, could have gleaned from the scare in Bavaria, although I doubt a certain knight of the realm at Old Trafford will share the same opinion, especially as main title rivals Chelsea hoved into view in Manc-land today.

For England though, Rooney’s enforced rest and recuperation is a major bonus. The striker, who still plays with the appetitive of a lad in the street praying that darkness does not herald him being called in by his mum, will be afforded some much-needed breathing space and at precisely the most hectic spell of the campaign.

You can bet Rooney himself will be just as sore at his enforced exile as his boss at the Theatre of Reams of debt. Kicking his heels, or should that be heel, will not sit easily with the Croxteth-born crusader, particularly with his current run of scoring form hitting unparalleled heights.

But just to have him becalmed, albeit for a month or so, could prove an immense benefit to the hopes of the Three Lions enjoying any sort of roar in deepest South Africa this summer.

ON the subject of injuries, what price Cesc Fabregas ruling himself out of a dream return to Barcelona and not just four days’ hence when his Arsenal side visit the Nou Camp in the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final?

Fabregas – both injured and disciplined out of playing next week at the club from where the Gunners recruited him as a teenager – scored the penalty that earned a stunning 2-2 draw at the Emirates. But the spot-kick award was a con which not only enabled Arsenal to bag a leveller but also got Barca skipper Carles Puyol harshly red-carded.

If Arsenal prevail next week all might not be so Fab on a potential permanent return to the midfielder’s beloved Barca.