Owen Hargreaves' injuries | Fergie: I don't see him playing again this season

I don't get the comparisons to Fletcher. Fletcher doesn't play the sitting role that Hargreaves does/would - he'd not be taking Fletcher's place but, more so playing along with him or in certain cases taking Fletcher's place in case he is out.

The two of them together can offer a lot of energy in our midfield.

As for Hargreaves being a great passer - in the role he plays, he is a very good passer. His job is/never has been to open up defenses. It's to get the ball and distribute it out to the those that can - he never was found wanting in that department. If you want to compare - look at Barry who can be quite terrible at getting the ball out linking up defense to midfield.
 
i would have thought a fit hargreaves was just what we needed last season

On the bench as a backup for Scholes and Fletcher? Possibly. On good form he'd have been a better option than an out of form Carrick. It'd hardly have transformed our season though.
 
On the bench as a backup for Scholes and Fletcher? Possibly. On good form he'd have been a better option than an out of form Carrick. It'd hardly have transformed our season though.

Nah, he would've changed a lot for us, both in the midfield as well as during our defender crisis in December. Might've been the missing points we needed to nudge us to another league.
 
I honestly expect to see him leave for free before he plays 5 more matches for us.



That should save the club 5 Million in salary, and more importantly open up a slot for a decent medfielder.
 
Nah, he would've changed a lot for us, both in the midfield as well as during our defender crisis in December. Might've been the missing points we needed to nudge us to another league.

Similar argument could be applied for Essien
 
Similar argument could be applied for Essien

Yes, but we're not considering that in this argument - which was whether Hargreaves could've helped us, which if fit, he clearly could have.
 
Where we have missed Hargreaves was in Europe (and in some big PL games). Sir Alex has often favored using a similar system to the AC Milan side of several years ago in central midfield. Scholes sits much deeper than the other two, directing the play from there, just as Pirlo did at Milan, and Fletcher and Hargreaves (or Carrick, as it necessarily has been) pressing fairly high up the field in order to win the ball back as early as possible, again, as Milan used to with Gattuso and Ambrosini.

If Carrick can re-find his form, he could possibly be used in the Scholes role, particularly as he doesn't really have the energy and aggression to be one of the two pressing players. He has the passing range, but he has often seemed reluctant to take the responsibility of being the main playmaker, which is a shame.
 
We only lost by one point, so he wouldn't have needed to improve us much for us to have won it.

I don't think he'll come back to full fitness though.