Hargreaves feels at home

Owen Hargreaves may have been frustrated by injuries in his first few months at Old Trafford, but the Reds midfielder says it took him no time at all to settle.

The 26-year-old appears to have finally overcome the tendonitis injury that plagued the start to his United career, and he has now started the last five league games for the Reds.

And while things are just starting to go right on the field, he reveals he’s not had any problems off it.

“I feel like I’ve been at the club for years,” he told MUTV. “I’ve known a lot of the players for a long time through the England set-up and, of course, the national team has trained at Carrington on numerous occasions and also played at Old Trafford. So it’s always been familiar to me.

“Being a United player is everything I expected and more. I’ve been really impressed with the club as an organisation, the people, the way everyone has taken to me. I’ve been hugely impressed with the quality of the players, the staff, the fans and also the style of football this team plays.

“The only disappointment has been that I’d like to have played more games. Hopefully that will change now.”

Despite the injury, Hargreaves was always comforted by the knowledge that Sir Alex Ferguson would deal with the problem in the right way.

“He has so far proved to be the perfect manager,” added Owen. “With the injury he's known when to rest me and when to give me games. But it’s not just the manager, all the coaches that work with the first team are excellent. They play an important role, but Sir Alex is the figurehead of it all.”

The aim now is for a run of games in the side, but that in itself brings its own challenges.

“The competition in midfield is great,” he adds. “We miss Scholesy at the moment, he’s such a great player, but Anderson has come in and he’s really starting to show what he’s capable of.

"We’ve got plenty of options with Michael Carrick and Darren Fletcher pushing for places. It makes it difficult for the manager, which is a good thing.”