Edwin van Der Sar

Edwin van der Sar insists that his club team-mate and international colleague Ruud van Nistelrooy is not worried about his World Cup prospects despite being left out of the last four Manchester United starting eleven.

Sir Alex Ferguson has famously decided to give Louis Saha the nod due to his impressive strike rate in recent games and the Frenchman further impressed with a brace in the 2-1 win over West Brom last weekend.

Dropping van Nistelrooy whilst he was leading the Premiership goalscoring charts led to an upsurge in speculation about whether his future remains at Old Trafford, but the club have been quick to insist the former PSV Eindhoven man is happy in Manchester.

Now van der Sar has stated that, although his time on the bench has been difficult for the prolific Dutchman, van Nistelrooy is not concerned that the continued snub will have any impact on his World Cup chances.

"It is difficult for him, of course," said van der Sar.

"But it's down to him and the hard work he shows on the training pitch.

"Ruud has no concerns, he has spoken with the manager, Marco van Basten, they had a good conversation.

"But Ruud will hope to play a couple of games before the World Cup."

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