It has been reported that Manchester United’s Owen Hargreaves may leave Manchester United on a free transfer during the January transfer window after he was told that he had no future at the club.
United will be looking to cut the losses and will probably off-load the former Bayern Munich man for nothing in the next window.
Owen Hargreaves’ contract runs until the end of this season and manager Sir Alex Ferguson is not at all prepared to extend his stay at Old Trafford.
The injury hit midfielder is in Germany receiving treatment on his hamstring injury.
Sir Alex Ferguson has been very patient with Hargreaves’ injury woes but now has reluctantly decided that Owen Hargreaves might not be able to assert his authority in the starting XI after an injury plagued 2 years at the club since his £18 million move
from German giants Bayern Munich in 2007.
Owen Hargreaves has already had 2 major surgeries on both his knees because of tendonitis for a good part of two years.
He did make a comeback though this November against Wolverhampton Wolves but lasted only 6 minutes before tearing his hamstring.
United will look to save money by removing Owen Hargreaves from the pay roll in which he earns £70,000 a week and will have to agree on compensation on the remaining time left in his contract.
Born in Canada, Owen Hargreaves was signed by German giants Bayern Munich in 1997. He played his first senior game for the Bavarians in 2000, coming on for Carsten Jancker. His first season at the club ended with Munich winning the Bundesliga and Champions
League title becoming only the second English player to win the Champions League with a non-English club after Real Madrid’s Steve McManaman. The next season saw Hargreaves establishing himself as a regular in the Bayern side and the team once again won the
Bundesliga title.
After 7 years and a year of negotiations, Hargreaves left Bayern Munich to sign for Manchester United for £17 million. The 2007-08 season turned out to be a great debut season for Owen Hargreaves as he went on to win the Premier League and the Champions
League with Manchester United. The start of 2008-09 season saw Hargreaves’ career hampered by injuries and then the patellar tendonitis problem restricted the former Bayern Munich man to feature only sporadically for the side and then had two separated surgeries
on his knee.
It would be a sad day when Owen Hargreaves leaves Old Trafford, a club where he started so brilliantly and a place where he could have won so much and would have been essential for both Manchester United and England. It is very unlucky that a player of his
calibre might see his football career come to an end due to injuries. He is still not looking to give up but signs are that maybe, injuries have started to take a toll on him.
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