Carrick and Hargreaves close to Manchester United return
Michael Carrick and Owen Hargreaves seem set for a return to first team football for Manchester United against West Brom next week when the domestic season restarts after the international break.
Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson said:
“We are expecting Michael to be available next week. He is almost back to full training now.
Owen is much better and we will pencil him in for the West Brom game without question.”
Carrick has been relatively injury free in the two seasons he’s been at United, hopefully he can put his recent injury behind him and stay fit, he’s the sort of player you end up relying on in crunch moments and he rarely lets you down. In fact, when you look at players like Michael Carrick and Wes Brown you might not see first-team starters but they contribute so much to a season (Brown played the most games for United last season) that United would a much poorer squad without them.
Hargreaves is a different story. When fit he ads so much to the team (not least on the right wing and on set pieces) but he’s become Saha-like with his fitness. He needs to stay fit for more than a month or two at a time otherwise he will end up, like Saha, out of the international team and shipped off to another club within an year or two. Fergie will give him as much time as possible though, he’s always stood by his players in such times.
And, I know it’s a week away, but let’s hope that Rooney stays fit over the two international games and hits the ground running with another goal against West Brom.
The 2008 Soccerlens Awards: Nominate Your Favourite Football Sites Here
That would be a great news for all Manchester United Fans!! Wow!!
I hope both are healthy and ready to contribute. As much as I like Hargreaves, I have to wonder about his long-term future at Manchester United. If he’s really suffering from the same knee injury that he had when he came over from Bayern, then either it’s a serious condition that could possibly shorten his career or else he’ll need to take a lot of time off (maybe the rest of the year) to properly rehab his knee. Makes you wonder what he did all summer. After all, it’s not like he had international duty or anything.
I know we have start this year’s campaign with a lot of injuiries with our best midfielders being sidelined. hopefully, with the return of Cristiano Ronaldo he can possibly boost our scoring hunger that we are sitting 8th in the premier league. Wayne combination with Berbatov is outstanding and this was proven in thier game aganist Blackburn Rovers.I would probably urge Sir Alex to make use of Ji-Sung Park on one wing,Ronaldo on the other and Fletcher,Giggs and Anderson in the midfield if those injured are not fit yet. our is defence is no doubt the best and most solid with Rio,Vidic, Evra and Brown or Rafael on the right full back.
Gary should be told clear that it is time for the young stars to be in the pitch rather than him crying for a game. I reckon with this few remarks, it can ring a bell in the mind of Ferguson.