• This is the time to bring him back, says Sir Alex Ferguson
• Defender to play again after three-month lay-off

Rio Ferdinand will play for Manchester United tomorrow against Hull City in his first game since October.

In addition to missing three months’ worth of domestic action, Ferdinand also sat out England’s friendly with Brazil.

However his manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, now feels the moment is right to bring the defender back into action.

“This is the time to bring him back,” said the United manager. “We have gone through the whole situation with him in terms of enough training and endurance work. It is a big boost because the defence has been the weakest part of our game this season.

“At various times we have lost Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Edwin van der Sar, John O’Shea. It has been a rough time, so to get them back can only be good for us.”

O’Shea was yesterday ruled out for the rest of the season while Ferguson confirmed today that Vidic was still a fortnight away from recovering from a calf complaint. That would at least put him in contention to face Milan in the last 16 of the Champions League.

United are one point behind Chelsea and Arsenal at the top of the league, having played one more game than Carlo Ancelotti’s side.

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• Wins Dubai marathon but misses world record by 2min 10sec
• ‘I was watching TV and I slipped into an awkward position’

Haile Gebrselassie failed to lower his own world record when he was hampered by a niggling back injury at the Dubai marathon. The Ethiopian had promised another vintage performance but he was clearly struggling throughout the race and missed his 18-month-old world record of 2hr 3min 59sec by a considerable margin.

The world’s greatest-ever distance runner revealed afterwards he had been troubled by a back injury, which he picked up when relaxing before the race the previous evening. “I was watching TV and I slipped into an awkward position which meant I had to sleep in a different way,” Gebrselassie said after a restless night in bed.

“I normally sleep on my stomach but I had to sleep on my back. When I woke up I found my disc was troublesome and in a bad way and I still cannot bend.”

The 36-year-old consulted his manager and physiotherapist but took the decision to still start the race where he was also seeking a third successive victory in the world’s richest marathon with total prize money of $2m.

Gebrselassie, who went on to win in 2:06.09 and a first prize of $250,000, admitted he was a little relieved the challenge to better the mark he set in Berlin had fallen apart so early given his problem.

He admitted: “If the pacemakers had ran faster I would have had no choice – I would have had to run with them.”

Gebrselassie reduced to kilometre splits of only 3min 2sec and allowed Chala Dechase, a former Amsterdam marathon runner-up, to come on his shoulder just after 33km and his fresher-looking countryman appeared to be on course for a shock victory. However Gebrselassie, his face twisted in pain, found hidden reserves and with another injection of pace, finally got clear of Dechase to clock up a hat-trick of successes with a winning margin of 24sec.

Eshetu Wendimu made it a clean sweep for Ethiopia when third for the second successive year in 2:06.46.

The Ethiopian pair Mamitu Daska and Aberu Shewaye had a much closer encounter in the women’s race, the former eventually triumphing by eight seconds in 2:24.18. Kenya’s Helena Kirop prevented another clean sweep by their African rivals, finishing third in 2:24.54.

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• Germany’s Andre Greipel increases overall lead with stage win
• Armstrong and team-mate Vaitkus dragged back to peloton

Germany’s Andre Greipel won the fourth and longest stage of the Tour Down Under on Friday, increasing his overall lead and trumping a bold play by Lance Armstrong.

Armstrong and Radioshack team-mate Tomas Vaitkus made an audacious bid for victory with less than 15km of the 149.5km stage remaining. But in buffeting winds, they were dragged back and absorbed by the peloton.

The seven-times Tour de France winner Armstrong finished 50th on the stage, 17 seconds behind Greipel’s winning time of 3hr 30min 29sec and was 29th on general classification after four of six stages. That was 47 seconds behind Greipel’s accumulated time of 13hr 23min 57sec.

“The last 5km, we always rode from the front and no one could pass us it’s a sign of strength,” Greipel said of his US-based team HTC Columbia. “We deserved the win because we always ride from the front.”

Armstrong tried to win the stage as it swept towards its finish in the crowded main street in Goolwa. But with only two men in his desperate breakaway, he was forced to battle into a gusting sea breeze and could not defend a margin which peaked at 15sec.

“That was as hard as I could go,” Armstrong said. “We knew very obviously it was windy. This stage last year was very, very windy. You knew the last 10 miles or so were going to be most likely crosswinds so we tried to stay in the front just before that. Then Tomas just went and then we kept going and kept going and when we turned around, there was only two of us.”

Robbie McEwan was second, his fellow Australian Graeme Brown third and Armstrong’s Radioshack team-mate Gert Steegmans was fourth.

Greipel held a 20-second lead on accumulated time over McEwen, with the New Zealander Greg Henderson third and Steegmans fourth a further four seconds back. The world road racing champion and two-times Tour de France runner-up Cadel Evans of Australia was 21st in Friday’s stage and seventh on general classification.

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• British No1 beats Frenchman 7-5, 6-1, 6-4
• Murray sets up fourth round match with John Isner

So, Andy Murray’s French odyssey continues, a routine, if imperfect 7-5, 6-1, 6-4 win over Florent Serra in round three of the Australian Open today catapulting him towards a fourth-round match against the American John Isner.

Serra was only ever in the match in the first set, when they went error for error as Murray struggled for rhythm and inspiration. He hit long. He hit wide. But not quite as often as his French opponent. Coming off a sound win over Marc Gicquel in the second round, Murray might have thought he’d been assigned to seeing off the French single-handedly at these championships.

He started brilliantly, racing to a 3-0 lead, and it looked as if it might all be over in a twinkling. But there were a couple of key moments that sparked the Scot’s resurgence. After blowing his lead and trouncing the ball to all parts, he hit a winner on the run for 30-all, then clinched the break with a two-fisted backhand for 5-3.

However, he hit his second double fault to allow Serra back in at 5-4, before upping the quality of his serve to take the set.

The second set was a stroll, the third only slightly more demanding. “It was good,” he said. “The first set was a bit closer than it needed to be. “I had chances to go 4-0, didn’t take them, and he started to get into it a little bit. But to win in straight sets is really important. Especially the second set was good.”

Murray’s next opponent will be the big-serving American John Isner, who caused a minor upset by knocking out Gaël Monfils in four sets. Isner is a player in form, having won the Heineken Open in Auckland last week, and Murray said: “He gives guys a lot of problems. He’s 6ft 9in with a huge serve.”

Isner sent 26 aces past Monfils, the 12th seed, in their third-round match.

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Today’s tell-all promises so much, but delivers so little

Good morning. Today’s Rumours overslept, so you’ll have to go without today’s pointless opening paragraph o’fun. But then who needs one, when the word on the street is that Ruud van Nistelrooy has decided against pledging his future to an East End club joint-owned by a pair of rhythm mag publishers, one of whom has a fondness for the kind of burgundy crushed velvet dinner jackets made trendy by Bernard Manning in the 1970s. Despite West Ham’s offer of £100,00-per-week, the Dutch international striker will definitely sign for Spurs. Maybe.

Having declared at the end of December that the chances of him buying anyone in this transfer window were “very, very, very, very slim” on New Year’s Eve, Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp is emphatically not assembling a £10m ransom in the hope of securing the release of Younes Kaboul from Fratton Park. The visage of the permanently surprised looking Portsmouth defender can also be seen on “Wanted” posters near Sunderland’s Stadium of Light and Manchester City’s Eastlands. Redknapp is also completely uninterested in Palermo’s blond, blue eyed Danish centre-half Simon Kjaer, who is on the market for £11m, but apparently looking for too much in the weekly wedge department. And you can also add Juve defender Giorgio Chiellini to the increasingly long list of players that Harry Redknapp won’t be enquiring after, not least because the player’s agent was in Manchester for the Carling Cup semi-final on Wednesday night. “I was invited by the two clubs and I was pleased to see a good match,” said Davide “Son of Marcello” Lippi, holding his cards very close to his chest.

Having become as much a daily staple in the current transfer window’s Rumour Mills as Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Barry were this time last year, Bordeaux striker Marouane Chamakh has decided he enjoys the attention being lavished on him so much that he’s not going to decide where he’s off to until the last minute. He’s told Arsenal and Liverpool he’ll choose between them at the month, at which point hopefully both of them will tell him to sling it.

Rumours linking Kris Boyd with a move to Aston Villa have been greatly exaggerated, claim Aston Villa, who according to the Independent have “distanced themselves” from talk that they’re close to signing the rangers striker who broke Henrik Larsson’s all-time Scottish Premier League record of 158 goals when he netted 41 times in a 56-3 smiting of Dundee United in December*.

The prospect of hearing 47,000 Mackems singing “Sunday, Monday Habib Beye! Tuesday, Wednesday Habib Beye! Thursday, Friday Habib Beye!” is becoming increasingly real, what with Sunderland boss Steve Bruce wanting to bolster his decidedly porous backline and Martin O’Neill being willing to let the French born Senegalese leave Villa Park for £1.8m. Bruce also likes the cut of Middlesbrough winger Adam Johnson’s jib, but will have to clash antlers with Mick McCarthy and Carlo Ancelotti if he’s to secure the 22-year-old’s John Hancock.

The Express reveals that Burnley manager Brian Laws is hoping that Portsmouth see “common sense” and let David Nugent stay on loan at Turf Moor until the end of the season. With all the evidence suggesting that common sense is thinner on the ground at Fratton Park than promptly delivered pay-slips, the Rumour Mill can’t help but feel that if Laws had kept schtum, there’s a very good chance Pompey would have forgotten that Nugent is their player.

West Ham and Birmingham are both interested in bringing out-of-favour Milan striker Klaus Jan Huntelaar to the Premier League on a loan spell, while the player’s agent has confirmed that his client is eager to go to a club willing to give him first team football so that he can guarantee his place in the Dutch World Cup squad. Marco Ruben’s chances of securing a berth on Holland’s plane to South Africa are considerably slimmer, not least because he’s Argentinian. The striker does, however, remain hopeful that Roberto Martinez will pluck him from Villarreal reserves and give him a chance at Wigan.

Despite being openly courted by Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini, Real Madrid’s lank-haired Argentinian midfielder Fernando Gago has announced that he wants to sign for Boca Juniors. “There are many teams that want to have him,” said the player’s agent, Marcelo Lombilla. “He knows that if he returned to Boca, he would play regularly, which is what he needs. Money is not important to him. He wants to play regularly before the World Cup.”

Meanwhile in Italy, Roma technical director Bruno Conti has quelled speculation linking midfielder Daniele De Rossi with a move to Real Madrid in the summer. “We have never been in talks with the Spanish side’s directors to sell our vice-captain,” he said. “Daniee is settled in Rome and won’t be going anywhere. We are not planning to release him.”

So that’s that, then. So long, sock-suckers.

* This is not strictly true.

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Great golfer. Strange fellow.

In this clip unearthed by the excellent blog, weiunderpar.com, Bubba sings a song for the American TV talk show host, Ellen DeGeneres.

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That high-pitched sound you hear is the sound of whining from southern California, where the PGA Tour is gathered this week for the Bob Hope Classic.

Once upon a time the “Hope”, a pro-am event, was one of the better weeks of the year featuring as it did all the best players, as well as some of the biggest celebrities, including Hollywood royalty and US Presidents. In 1995, Bill Clinton put the fate of the free world to one side and nipped down to Palm Springs for the week to play in the tournament.

But for the past while the tournament has been something of a non-event. Many of best players (including Tiger and Phil) don’t play in it, and nor do the biggest celebrities (Kenny G doesn’t count). This year’s event is even worse than normal because of the biblical rain that has swept across California all week. Tuesday’s practise day and Thursday’s second round were wiped out, leaving the organisers and players with nothing to do but sit around in the clubhouse to watch TV coverage of the European Tour event in Abu Dhabi and work on their grievances.

Somehow these two activities became inter-twinned and now we have what could describe as a bubbling controversy centring on the PGA Tour’s “conflicting events release”.

As the name implies, this is a release granted to PGA Tour members who want to play in events that conflict with PGA Tour events. This week several PGA Tour players asked for, and received, a release to go and play in Abu Dhabi, most notably Kenny Perry and Anthony Kim.

So far, so what. Except some people appear to have got it into their head that one reason the Bob Hope Classic is such an awful event is that the Abu Dhabi golf championship is a good one; or at least good enough (and, let’s face it, lucrative enough) to attract eight of the world’s top 14 players.

In particular the presence in the Middle East of Anthony Kim ,who spent some of his formative years in Palm Springs appears to irked some, or at least irked Scott McCarron, who happens to be a member of the PGA Tour Players Advisory Council (which is a bit like a trade union, except the members do everything the bosses tell them to do).

McCarron let rip to Golfdigest.com:

The tour does not have to give the conflicting events release. It’s up to (Tim) Finchem (PGA Tour commissioner). He can do that. He can say, ‘Anthony Kim, you can’t go to Abu Dhabi. You’ve got to play here. Sorry.’ For tournaments like the Bob Hope, when you have guys like Anthony Kim and some other guys, especially with local ties, he should be here at the Bob Hope.

“We’re at the start of the season, we need sponsorship, we need everybody playing here. And I mean everybody. For me, being on the PAC, I would say, ‘Mr. Finchem, don’t let any guys out, at least the first couple weeks.'”

The New York Times also notes that the tournament director of the Hope event, Michael Milthorpe would “like to see the tour do a moratorium on them (conflicting event releases), until things pick up”.

Clearly, self-awareness is not on the high school syllabus in Palm Springs, otherwise those running the Bob Hope Classic might have worked out their problem is not that a handful of players have chosen to play on the European Tour but that, in the Bob Hope Classic, they are running a tournament that is deeply unattractive to players, celebrities, spectators and television viewers.

As for McCarron – does he really think the 2010 Bob Hope Classic is a disaster because Anthony Kim isn’t around? And, in any case, why pick on Kim? I might be wrong but I don’t remember Scott McCarron, or anyone else on the PGA Tour for that matter, complaining when Tiger Woods ventured off around the world in years past to Hoover up appearance fees.

Then there is wider issue of events like this week’s in Abu Dhabi tempting American players with their filthy lucre, sowing the seeds of disloyalty and discontent. Clearly, there are some on the PGA Tour who are concerned this is what is happening. If so, they should console themselves with the fact that at least their financial well-being isn’t tied to the fate of the European or Japanese tours, both of which in recent months have been forced to watch as the PGA Tour did everything in its power to tempt Rory McIlroy and Ryo Ishikawa to play full-time in the States.

McIlroy succumbed to the temptation and has decided to take up PGA Tour. Ishikawa declined. Perhaps the young Japanese star was worried he would be forced to play in the Bob Hope Classic as part of some cruel PGA Tour initiation ritual.

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• Belgian into last 16 after 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 win
• Seven-time grand slam champion was a set and 3-1 down

Justine Henin had to show all of her battling qualities to keep her bid for a grand slam title on track at the Australian Open. The wildcard entry fought back from a set down against the 27th seed, Alisa Kleybanova, to progress to the last 16 with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory in two hours and 20 minutes.

Henin, who has just returned from retirement, lost the opening set in 36 minutes and looked to be on her way out when she was down 3-1 and at 15-40 on her serve in the second set. The seven-time grand slam champion showed her class, however, as she responded to the danger by holding serve and then immediately breaking the Kleybanova serve.

Henin had been subdued as she struggled from the baseline for the opening hour-and-a-half of the match, but she suddenly found her groove. A signature ripped backhand across court brought a cry of “allez” from the Belgian to underline her growing confidence and she broke for a second time to claim the set when Kleybanova double faulted.

The 20-year-old Russian was broken again at the start of the third set to allow Henin to open a 3-0 lead. Kleybanova was not prepared to give up without a fight and broke back only for Henin to claim back the advantage immediately and make it 4-2. That served to finally snuff out Kleybanova’s brave resistance as Henin won the next two games and wrap up the 500th win of her career.

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• Pair beat Chuang and Peschke in women’s doubles
• Borwell and Kops-Jones bow out in straight sets

Laura Robson’s Australian Open involvement continued as she moved into the third round of the women’s doubles.

The Melbourne-born British prospect, who turned 16 this week, continued her partnership with Australian Sally Peers to beat the 12th-seeded pair Chia-Jung Chuang and Kveta Peschke 6-3, 6-4 in their second-round clash on Court Seven.

Yesterday, Robson celebrated her birthday by ousting Americans Jill Craybas and Abigail Spears in two sets in front of a partisan ‘home’ crowd.

Sarah Borwell and her American partner Raquel Kops-Jones were less fortunate, however, losing to Argentinian Gisela Dulko and Italy’s Flavia Pennetta 7-5, 6-2.

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• ‘He’s down to three clubs’ says co-owner David Sullivan
• West Ham desperate to secure strikers to balance side

West Ham have offered the Real Madrid striker Ruud van Nistelrooy £100,000 a week to join the club. Their move indicates the new co-­owners, David Sullivan and David Gold, are willing to break the bank for a marquee signing this month, despite their admission about the dire level of financial strife at Upton Park.

“We’ve offered £100,000 a week to a player today and we are still not sure we are going to get him,” Sullivan told BBC Radio 5 live. “That was a very special player. There’s no transfer fee involved and he’s got the choice of almost every club in Europe. He has played at the ­highest level.”

Sullivan and Gold, who this week bought 50% of West Ham for £44m, have promised not to sell any players this month despite claiming that the club, 16th in the Premier League and out of the relegation zone only on goal difference, are in a “mess” and still owe around £110m.

“We can carry one exceptional player, who would make a difference on that wage, but generally we have to bring the wages down and in the summer we would hope to sign younger players on a fraction of those wages,” said Sullivan.

Van Nistelrooy, who has been unable to hold down a regular place at Madrid and wants to go to the World Cup with Holland, has also attracted interest in England from Stoke and Tottenham and from Turkey’s Galatasaray among other clubs. It is understood that Tottenham may not yet be out of the running to land the 33-year-old former Manchester United striker, despite Sullivan’s assertion that West Ham were the only English club still in the running, even though Sullivan said: “He’s down to three clubs and West Ham are the only English club still in the hunt for him.”

Sullivan emphasised that strikers were a priority for West Ham. “We have looked at a few players in the Championship but the reality is that it is no good if they make the grade in 12 months’ time, we need them to make the grade now. We have a crisis and you have to have a ­different strategy to what our long-term strategy will be.

“We are trying to sign players because unfortunately we have come in very, very late and we have got a very unbalanced squad. We are particularly short of strikers and they are the hardest and most difficult position to fill. That’s the short-term objective. We have guaranteed that we will not sell a player in the transfer ­window and we are looking at targets. We are doing our best for West Ham but at the moment we are drawing blanks.”

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