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Owen Hargreaves: 'Manchester United treated me like a guinea pig'

Owen Hargreaves claims that Manchester United treated him like a "guinea pig" in their attempts to get him back to full fitness.

Owen Hargreaves has claimed that former club Manchester United treated him like a "guinea pig" in their attempts to get him back to fitness.

The midfielder was released from Old Trafford over the summer following three injury-plagued years before signing for rivals Manchester City.

"I've had to be a guinea pig for a lot of these treatments," the 30-year-old told The Guardian. "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.'"

Hargreaves has also said that he was unfit to play in his comeback game against Wolverhampton Wanderers last November, a match in which he lasted five minutes before coming off with a hamstring problem.

"I started that game with two muscle injuries but I should never have been in that position to begin with. I was just going to try to get through 45 minutes because that would have been a start," he added. "But I didn't even last five.

"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.' I know it sounds comical."

The former Bayern Munich player scored on his City debut in their 2-0 Carling Cup win against Birmingham City on Wednesday night.

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