“I Was Used As A Guinea Pig At Manchester United” – Owen Hargreaves

Alan Duffy

23rd, September 2011

21 Comments

By Alan Duffy


Following his Lazarus-like comeback and goal for Manchester City during the week, Owen Hargreaves’ rediscoverd strength in his legs seems to have worked its way up to his mouth.

The Canadian-born England man now claims that, during his injury-plagued time at United, he was given treatments which may well have done him more harm than good.

“I received some injections and my tendon was never the same,” he explained. “I tried to get back on my feet and (United’s medical staff) said my tendon was good, but it felt like I was made of glass.”

“(The injections) obviously had a huge impact. With hindsight, I probably should not have had them. It’s difficult.”

The former Bayern Munich midfielder also claims that he was put under pressure to play for United last season in a Premier League game against Wolves, but then limped off after just five minutes of action.

“I said, ‘I think I’ve got a bit of a muscle problem here,” he explained. “I was surprised it didn’t go in the warm-up. I wasn’t going to sprint, which sounds comical. I was just going to try to get through 45 minutes because that would have been a start.”

“But I didn’t even last five. I wasn’t surprised because I had said to them that I had a hamstring problem, which I obviously did have.”

We await a response from Old Trafford. Fight! fight! fight!

PS: Fergie hasn’t been using Arsene Wenger’s “Yellow Liquid” on his own players too, has he??

UPDATE: Ferguson has responded to Hargreaves’ comments by supporting his medical staff.

He said: “As far as I am concerned my medical staff are one of the main reasons why we have been so successful over the last few years.”

“Do you think we would be successful if they were not 100% brilliant? That is my opinion and that is more important than what anyone else has to say about it.”

So that’s Hargreaves told then.

 

Posted in Man City, Man Utd

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21 Comments

  1. Stephen Hawkins says:

    Ungrateful prick. He earned £12m in wages over the 3 years he was disabled as United, not bad going.

  2. bazal says:

    “claims that he was put under pressure to play for United last season” because god forbid he should earn some of the money he was more than happy to take. A footballer being pressured to play football, whatever next?!

  3. A.C says:

    Now i fear for his health “outside” the pitch…

    I think Mr Hargreaves has just given himself a new name there..

  4. Dave says:

    what a douche, man utd waste millions on him and he complains about having to play football! cunt.

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  6. “That is my opinion and that is more important than what anyone else has to say about it.”

    The grand ol’ Dame of Football showing us all how to age gracefully.

  7. Stopping the BS says:

    Typical Pies…

    Let’s see what ELSE Hargreaves had to say in the exact SAME statement:

    “All the people there [at United] are lovely. Everybody tries their best but, at times, you come to a certain point when you need to make a decision.”

    wait, there’s more.

    “United are one of the biggest clubs in the world with Barcelona and Real Madrid. They have a lot of wonderful people there. I’m sad for myself that I wasn’t able to play a bigger part there.”

    still more.

    “I really envisaged it going differently but it didn’t materialise the way I anticipated. They’ve moved on now and they’ve got a wonderful group of players.”

    and still more yet.

    “The young guys who are coming through look great. So I’m happy for them as well. But this is a new chapter in my life.”

    source: http://www.goal.com/en/news/9/england/2011/09/23/2678568/owen-hargreaves-slams-manchester-united-over-injury-treatments-i-

    So for all those who say the man is a douche or a prick, shut the fuck up and try getting your news from somewhere else than this blog.

    And Pies, shame on you for trying to make a gentlemen look like an asshole. He’s a standup guy and a great player.

  8. Chris says:

    @BS: At no point did Alan make Hargreaves out to be anything of the sort, neither did he refer to either the man or the club in negative terms at any point – he just used the salient part of the quote needed to address the issue.

    Seems you’ve given a batch of otherwise remote quotes an entirely synthesised inflection in order to muddle up your own miopic persecution complex with an ‘anti-whatever media bias’ again.

  9. Stopping the BS says:

    Just a little something extra for ye Pies bastards.

    The part of Ferguson’s statement that you just happen to leave out…

    “We are trying to analyse all the stuff he has said and there will be a statement later to address that”

    source: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/sport/football/manchester_united/s/1459645_our-medics-are-100-per-cent-brilliant-sir-alex-ferguson-defends-manchester-united-staff-after-hargreaves-outburst

    So, its quite clear to all those who actually have functioning brain cells that Fergie was barraged by questions about Owen’s “outburst”, and having not read his statement personally, he simply made it clear what he thinks of his medical team.

    You see how different everything is when you see the full story?

  10. Stopping the BS says:

    @Chris

    You knowingly withheld quotations in order to make it seem worse than it was, so your entire statement goes right out the window.

    “otherwise remote quotes” ^_^ Check the sources, its all there.

  11. Red Devilish says:

    Even after I read all the quotes I still think being paid 12m to be a science experiment makes him the most well paid lab rat that ever lived. He should have kept his mouth shut.

  12. Montesquieu says:

    Just because he was paid a lot of money to play football doesn’t mean that he gives consent to be put through potentially health altering treatments.

    Although I guess if you believe that, than Olympic athletes should all be hit up with steroids, since they’re doing their jobs as Olympians and can’t complain about anything since they’re winning glory for themselves and their nation.

  13. Dale says:

    Wasn’t it Daniel Taylor from the Guardian who did the interview? It’s not like the Guardian don’t have a record of hyperbolic sensationalism and selective quoting to bring the website hits in. Unfortunately a couple of quotes have been jumped on by the whole press.

    Having said that, I do wonder about a lot offootball club’s medical teams. Like when Benayoun reported for international duty and their doctors found he was carrying quite a serious injury that Chelsea had either ignored or not found themselves. The pressure in football for players to be rushed back early from injury or to play through the pain obviously has an adverse effect on the player’s future health, and it does seem that clubs priorities aren’t necessarily in the interest of the footballers themselves (duh).

  14. KingEric7 says:

    Have to agree I partially agree with stopping the BS here, I’ve read this article in several newspapers and they take Owen’s quote out of context to make it look more like an attack on United when I think in reality he was talking more about his general injury torment. I’ll admit he should have chose his words better and probably even kept his mouth shut because papers just can’t wait to pounce on stuff like this.

  15. fafaf says:

    bazal says:
    September 23, 2011 at 10:51 am

    “claims that he was put under pressure to play for United last season” because god forbid he should earn some of the money he was more than happy to take. A footballer being pressured to play football, whatever next?!

    —–

    If he hadn’t been forced into that game and been injured as he knew he would, then he might have recovered and been able to actually get back to some level of decent playing fitness. Get some perspective.

    And Pies you know what you’re doing when you post articles like this, you know people will post comments like “ungrateful prick”. You could at least link to somewhere that has all the available lines of the interview so that people can make up their own minds.

  16. df says:

    so man united spent 17 million plus 12 mill in wages on a guinea pig?

  17. Stopping the BS says:

    @KingEric7

    “they take Owen’s quote out of context to make it look more like an attack on United when I think in reality he was talking more about his general injury torment.” – Bingo.

    “I’ll admit he should have chose his words better and probably even kept his mouth shut because papers just can’t wait to pounce on stuff like this.” – Agreed.

  18. Andy says:

    I have said it on this blog before. The man is a cunt.

  19. lordrt says:

    what a cunt, bet city paid him to say so, and like someone without brains he just went for it

  20. game camera says:

    I agree with this post.

  21. nat says:

    No I’m pretty sure I heard he was just a regular pig.

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