Another Ex Red Sees The Light, Joins City

You knew that one of the most interesting deals to come out of this flurry of transfer activity would involve the oil rich club Megabucks City. In the close season City signed Clichy and Savic before moving for Pantilimon and then a little known talent in the form of Sergio Aguero.That we thought was the best signing for City this window, and indeed it is still pretty impressive.

However, in the second week of the Premiership season Mancini landed his man in Nasri. It was a transfer saga that dragged on with Arsenal saying he didn’t want to go. Even Manchester United got involved, saying that they wanted to hijack the deal.

But although Nasri and Aguero are great signings they were not really a surprise. City are a team with a great manager and more money than some country’s economies, and they are looking to improve on last season’s third position.

No, the real surprise was the capture of Ex-Bayern Munich, Ex England and Ex Manchester United injury prone Owen Hargreaves. Early on in the rumor Hargreaves was photographed coming out of Manchester’s Bridgewater Hospital and shaking hands with City Medical Staff following tests on his knees and shoulder. It is fair to say that many City fans were not liking who Mancini was looking at.

Owen Hargreaves, who has played for England, was actually born in Canada. His mother is Welsh and his Father is English he was actually eligible to play for the Canada, Wales or England national teams. He obviously chose England and, although he has been frozen out of the England setup, he is looking to force his way back into Fabio Capello’s mind.

He started his career with German side Bayern Munich and spent seven years in Germany. There he helped Munich win the Budesliga four times and the Champions League once.

Hargreaves left Germany in 2007, joined United for €17 million and made his League debut in United’s third game of the season, a 1-0 defeat to City away. He scored his first and second goals for United from free kicks, one against Fulham and the other against Arsenal.

However, injuries would rob him of moving on and up in his career and he only made a handful of appearances in the 2008-09 season. Traveling to London and Sweden to see specialists didn’t help and eventually he went to the States.

There he underwent surgery on his right knee in November 2008 and a similar one on his left knee two months later. This meant he would miss out on the season, and another Premier League and League Cup winner’s medal.

After many comeback dates were missed, due to fitness or the manager pulling him, he would eventually turn out for 45 minutes in a reserve game. From then on he was not used much at all, becoming an unused sub against Spurs and then coming on in the 93rd minute in their penultimate game against Sunderland.

There were more setbacks for Hargreaves, finally resulting with his comeback being cut short after he picked up a hamstring injury. That was in November 2010 and on May 2011 he was informed his contract would not be renewed.

Certainly, despite his injury problems he has still won a lot throughout his career, including two Champions Leagues, and he would be the perfect replacement for recently retired Patrick Vieira and cover for Yaya Toure when he leaves in January for the African Cup of Nations.

That is why last night was so special and some City fans had to retract their intial reservations about the Cana-nglish midfielder. Selected to start in Mancinis heavily rotated eleven Owen finally got to play in a competitive fixture. What made it that much more special was he also scored the opener just before the twenty minute mark. You could see from his reaction just how much that meant to him as he repaid the faith shown to him by Man City. Just before the hour mark Owen was replaced by Milner and his comeback was complete, injury free and with a goal on his debut.