Ribery foot fault

Dubai : Bayern Munich's hopes of having Franck Ribery back from injury in time for Friday's first Bundesliga game after the winter break faded yesterday when it was revealed that the French player's much-publicised toe injury is still causing him a lot of pain.

Delivering his daily bulletin on the squad's Dubai camp coach Louis Van Gaal went so far as to say that he was disappointed with Ribery's progress.

"It's disappointing that he hasn't been able to train with the team," said Van Gaal. "This week was very important, but he wasn't able to join in."

Ribery joined the team at the Al Nasr club yesterday and trained part of the time in running shoes but mostly just in socks.

He was led through an individual session with sports rehab coach Thomas Wilhelmi, which included a lot of work with the ball.

Ruled out

Van Gaal has already ruled out the Frenchman's involvement in the Bundesliga restart fixture this week against Hoffenheim.

"The base of the toenail is dry again, but he still has to get back into boots," he said. "I think he'll be able to train with us next week, but he will not be in the squad for the Hoffenheim game."

The coach said he will also miss the warm-up match in Basel on Tuesday.

To illustrate Ribery's fitness level Van Gaal held his hand above his head and said: "The team is here."

Then dropping his hand to stomach level he added, "but Franck Ribery is here.

"It will be hard to catch up."

Ribery, who has been plagued by injuries this season explained: "There are good days and bad days,

"It's very painful. I just don't know. I trained completely normally on Sunday in Munich, and I wasn't wearing new boots or anything. It started hurting on the plane on the way to Dubai, and I was treated on arrival.

Treatment

"The doc drained a lot of blood and water."

It is now three months since the French forward took part in a match, having been sidelined first by an inflammation of his knee ligaments, followed by problems with his toe.

Meanwhile, there was cheer for Van Gaal as Dutch winger Arjen Robben, who faced a long struggle to regain fitness during the first half of the season following a knee operation, has now returned to the level of the team as a whole.

Van Gaal reported: "He took part in every training session and performed at a very high level

"He has always given everything in training, his performance is very good, and he's now back in business with the first team squad."