Owen Hargreaves is being left out of the
Manchester United team as a punishment for poor time-keeping, it
has been claimed.
While the peripheral role Hargreaves has occupied at Manchester
United since joining the club last summer from Bayern Munich has
generally been attributed to a niggling knee injury and Michael
Carrick's improved form, The Times claims that Sir Alex Ferguson
has been 'angered' by the midfielder's 'slovenly attitude'. It is
allegedly that Hargreaves has 'turned up late for several team
meetings'.
The newspaper cites a source at Old Trafford explaining, "It
might only be a matter of being 20 seconds late, but that is too
late as far as the manager is concerned and he [Hargreaves] knows
he is either going to have to adapt or face the consequences. It's
a learning process for him, but he will adapt and he has told the
manager that, which should be the end of the matter."
It is claimed that Hargreaves was also late to arrrive at
Manchester Airport on Monday morning before the squad flew to Rome
for their Champions League quarter-final with Roma.