Sir Alex to rotate in key week

“I was happy for Wayne Rooney and Chris Smalling to play full games at Wembley because they have not had a lot of football anyway,” he said.

“In fairness, [England manager] Roy Hodgson was quite fair with us in terms of who played a full game and who played parts. He did that with us all, particularly the teams playing in Europe.”

One player who looks set to miss both the Everton and Real clashes is Paul Scholes, who has not featured since last month’s FA Cup win over Fulham.

“Paul has a little bit of a knee injury,” Sir Alex revealed. “He has missed the last couple of games. He started training on Thursday and should be okay next week.”

Sir Alex also confirmed he has not yet talked to Scholes about whether he will play on next season, insisting there is “plenty of time”.

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