here is the original interview, instead of reading it through another source (also posted in another thread yesterday):
Despite the magnitude of what he is saying, it is not bitterness in Owen Hargreaves's voice. There is no overwhelming sense of malice or resentment and, at various moments, he talks warmly of all the "lovely people" he came across during those years at Manchester United when he was faced with his hardest times.
It is not a finger-jabbing rant and, now with Manchester City, he is sensitive to stirring up trouble between the two clubs. But, equally, there is the sense of a man who is clear in his mind that the medical staff at Old Trafford administered the wrong treatment for his knee problems and put his career on the line just at the point when he should have been at the peak of his profession.
He talks of being used as a "guinea pig" and wishing that he had had the foresight to say no when the club's medical staff decided to treat his extreme form of tendinitis with a series of injections. In the end, Hargreaves needed to have both knees rebuilt. On the worst days he could barely walk, and he could not be clearer when he is asked whether the specialists who saved his career have told him his former employers got it badly wrong. "Absolutely," he replies.
Hargreaves, by his own admission, has had times when he wondered whether he was finished. He played 34 of United's 57 games in his first season after joining from Bayern Munich, but he had passed his medical despite already being troubled by knee pain. When it started to get worse, he says he was told the best cure was to have the injections.
"I came back a week early for pre-season to get it done. They said I would be fit for the start of pre-season but, after that, I never got back on my feet. My tendon was never the same. They said my tendon was good, but it felt like I was made out of glass."
Does he think United mishandled the situation? "You would have to ask them," he replies. "There were a few crucial points. We treated it and it got significantly worse through the injections. That obviously had a huge impact. Basically, I was left to pick up the pieces, which was incredibly frustrating. That was surgery, and that was 18 months gone."
Except Hargreaves has actually lost three years of his career when you consider that, until this week, he had managed only six minutes of first-team football in that time. The first comeback was as an 89th-minute substitute at Sunderland in the penultimate match of the 2009-10 season. But it was his now-infamous appearance against Wolverhampton Wanderers last November when his story takes a shocking turn.
Hargreaves's account is that he told the club he was unable to play and knew he was so injured he would not even be able to run at full speed. "I started that game with two muscle injuries but I should never have been in that position to begin with. People at times must look at it from a distance and say: 'Shit, he's made out of glass.'
"But I don't know many people in the world who could do any sporting event with two muscle tears."
This is such an important point that it feels necessary to ask Hargreaves to confirm what he is saying. His plan, he says, was to try to get through the match without sprinting. "I know it 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. I'd said to them that I had a hamstring problem, which I obviously did. I said: 'I think I've got a bit of a problem here.' I was surprised it didn't go in the warm-up, to be completely honest."
In hindsight, he wishes he had been stronger and told Sir Alex Ferguson he was not going to play. "It was difficult. I wanted to play; they wanted me to play. There were 70,000 people there and, if I had walked away from the game, it would have looked like I didn't want to play. I thought: 'I'll try to play, I just won't sprint.'"
Hargreaves has spent a lot of time over these past three years wondering what else he would have done differently. "I've had to be a guinea pig for a lot of these treatments. But when you're left to try to make something of a difficult situation, it's not really an option to say: 'Let's sit it out and rest for six months.' With hindsight it's a lot easier. And, yes, the injections I had I probably should not have had.
"But it's difficult. 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. They said it [the injections] would help and that I wouldn't have any side-effects. That obviously wasn't the case and, if I'd known I could have had a reaction like that, I wouldn't have done it. It's my career – I'm in it. I'm trying to get all this information. I'm hearing about tendons and, before, I didn't know anything about tendons. I mean, I knew I had one, but I didn't know its real function. It was a shit position to be in, to be honest."
At times, he says, "I'd watch games and, as funny as it sounds, I'd actually be jealous of the way people could move. I'd wonder if I was ever going to be able to be as sharp, things like that." As he left the pitch against Wolves, head down, there was one thought in his mind: try not to limp. He felt like "a joker". A few minutes later he sat in the dressing room and broke down in tears.
"In hindsight, it should have gone differently. I had envisaged training for two years and coming back and it didn't go like that. But I wanted to play. I was new and it is hard to come in and say: 'I don't want to play.' We had big games and [Fabio] Capello wanted me to play in big England games. I just wanted to make myself available. I'm not a guy who wants to bitch and complain. I was trying to make the most of it, but it deteriorated over the season and we had to do these injections. After that, my knee, my tendon, was never the same."
He has just made his debut for Manchester City, playing 57 minutes of the Carling Cup tie against Birmingham City, and one of the great pleasures is that he is starting to feel part of a team again. He talks about spending so much time training alone at United that he developed "an allergy to other people". It is not entirely clear if he means it as a joke.
As comebacks go, Hargreaves ticked every box. He marked the occasion with a goal, struck from 25 yards, and there was clear evidence why, fully fit, he could play a significant part for City this season.
"A change of scenery, sadly enough, was essential for me. The guys here [City's medical staff] have been great so far. I have been here three weeks and you can already see the difference in me moving. I knew it was all there. It was just a matter of doing things right, I guess. You have to take things step by step."
There is an inference that this was not the case at Old Trafford. Hargreaves now believes he could play 40 games this season but understands why people will be sceptical. "If anybody had all the facts of the last three years and some of the things that have gone on, they might understand why [I say that]. But I don't think people will believe me, to be honest."
At 30, still an age when he can get back into Capello's thinking, Hargreaves now wants to focus on his new club. "We have been training very hard. I played a training game last week and did 60 minutes. So I have been here only three weeks and had two games in six days. There's a ton of games to be played and if I get five, 10, 15, 20, 40, I am just happy to help and looking forward to the future."
He looked good against Birmingham, passing the ball well, quick into the tackle. "My injury was never really a tackling injury, it was more of a load-and-impact thing. Anyone who has ever had this tendon injury knows it is very sensitive to impact but I couldn't injure it if I tackled someone. It is more to do with loads, cuts and turns."
He had surgery on both knees, placing his trust in Dr Richard Steadman, working from his Vail clinic in the mountains of Colorado. Steadman is renowned as the best in his business, saving the careers of countless sports people. His diagnosis of Hargreaves's knees was that they were among the worst he had seen in 35 years of operating.
"We are just going to have to manage it," Hargreaves says. "It was a big surgery. We're just going to have to be smart. It's going to be a natural progression. My functioning is very good, tip-top, but sadly I'm not 18 any more, so I need more recovery and more time in the gym to prepare for each training session.
"It's about getting some repetition in my training and trying to find some balance, staying sharp and fit and looking after some of the issues I've had. They were pretty significant issues. These guys [City] have been magnificent and that's why I ended up playing already."
He was, after all, not expected to make his debut for another three weeks. Hargreaves was not even included in City's 25-man squad for the Champions League group stages because of their misgivings about his fitness, which means no reunion with Bayern on Tuesday. Hargreaves is disappointed about that but can appreciate the club's reasons. "It was a bit of an unknown for them too. I said to them: 'I'm in good nick,' but they wouldn't really know it."
Will he travel with the team anyway? "Maybe. I had a wonderful time at Bayern. But I've got some training to do. That's the priority."
Looking ahead, Roberto Mancini has already spoken of his belief that Hargreaves can get back into the England team. "It's nice to focus on all these things but the last three years have taught me that you need to live in the moment," Hargreaves says. "I have got to focus on playing football here and, if England comes, then great, I'll embrace it. First, though, I've got to focus on City and getting some games under my belt to get that level back."
It makes a fascinating story. United effectively discarded Hargreaves when he came to the end of his contract in June, with no apparent belief that he would return to being the player they had signed four years earlier for £17m.
For him to turn up at City, when the rivalry between the clubs is possibly at an all-time high, is just another subplot to the drama of what is unfolding in Manchester this season.
"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," Hargreaves says. "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. 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."
And there are already signs the story could be a happier one on the blue side of Manchester rather than the red.
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