Scholes eyes shock return

Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes could make a shock return to first-team action at Charlton on Saturday.

The 27-year-old has not completed a full game this season after suffering an ankle injury in a warm-up game against Ajax in Amsterdam in early August.

He controversially limped out of the 1-0 home win over Middlesbrough – and also Sven-Goran Eriksson’s England squad to face Portugal – after which he had an operation to try and solve the problem.

United boss Sir Alex Ferguson predicted Scholes would be out of action for between a month and six weeks. However, the player has been training hard for the past fortnight and hopes to be in the squad which travels to the capital aiming to build on an impressive run of three successive wins.

“Everything seems to be fine, I’ve been working hard over the last 10 days,” he told MUTV.

“I am hoping to be in the squad this weekend. I am certainly not far away.”

Scholes has his eye on the international double-header with Slovakia and Macedonia next month, before which United have another Champions League outing against Olympiakos and a televised Premiership encounter with Everton.

The return of Scholes would be a major boost to Ferguson.

The Salford-born player averages a goal every four games for the Red Devils and is earmarked to provide striking support for Ruud van Nistelrooy, who himself is struggling to be fit for the weekend after picking up a slight hamstring strain in the win over Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday.