I will get the Roma preview out later in the day, hopefully. In the meantime, I will take a little time out and bring up the dreaded question that’s been on a lot of our minds:
Is Owen Hargreaves Our New Mr Glass? Or, in other words, Have we signed an expensive crock?
So what I did was a little digging into one of the world’s greatest reserves of knowledge — Wikipedia — and came up with some facts. I might seem a little disconcerting. Brace yourselves.
I will quote some excerpts from Wikipedia. You can read the entire article (which is his bio) here:
In the 2001-02 season Hargreaves established himself as a first team regular, making 46 appearances in all. In spite of setbacks for the club in the form of a third place finish in the Bundesliga, a quarter final appearance in the Champions League and a Cup defeat by Schalke, the season proved to be a decisive one for Hargreaves as he emerged as a key player of the team.
2002-03 saw Hargreaves celebrate another domestic success as Bayern won the Bundesliga title and the DFB Cup. On 26 January 2003, Hargreaves scored his first Bundesliga goal in the game against Borussia Mönchengladbach. Unfortunately, the season also saw him out injured on three separate occasions. In September he tore a thigh muscle, then in October a calf muscle. Towards the end of the season adductor problems meant he missed a further three weeks. He racked up 25 Bundesliga appearances, four Cup games and three matches in the Champions League.
The 2003-04 season was Hargreaves’ first with Bayern without winning any silverware. After clinching the double the year before, the Munich side finished second in the Bundesliga, and were knocked out of the Champions League by Real Madrid. Hargreaves made a total of 38 appearances for the club in this season.
In 2004-05 he picked up another German championship and DFB Cup. He had 27 appearances in the Bundesliga (one goal), played in three Cup games (two goals) and eight Champions League games.
In the 2005-06 season, he added another Bundesliga and Cup title. Hargreaves scored the first goal at the new Allianz Arena in a competitive match on 5 August 2005, against Borussia Mönchengladbach. In all, he had 15 (one goal) league, four (two goals) cup and three Champions League appearances.
In the 2006-07 season, Hargreaves was unfortunate enough to break his leg which has kept him out of most of Bayern Munich’s league campaign this term.
He’s had problems that include thigh, calf, leg break, adductor problems and now, his knee. Every conceivable part of his legs have come under the weather which leaves us to wonder how he passed a medical in the first place.
Of course, SAF’s desperation meant he might have taken him even if the doctors said that he was paralysed. But such stuff is worrying. Another surprising revelation came yesterday when SAF said that he would be out for a month, just 24 hours after saying that Hargreaves might feature in the Roma game. This is what the manager said about his injury situation:
“He will have an injection in his knee,” confirmed the boss on MUTV. “It was an option that we had some weeks ago, but after training on Monday he was feeling it and we just have to go ahead and give him the injection.
“Hopefully that’s the end of it and he comes back 100 per cent.”
I guess gambling with the fitness of an already injury prone player hasn’t paid off. One wonders why such a decision hadn’t been taken early on in the season. At present it would be a stretch to see him make the Arsenal game.
What do you people think? Is he plain unlucky, or have we made an error in judgement?
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