MUCH HAS CHANGED IN Owen Hargreaves’s life since his dark and not so distant days as the pariah of the Sven-Göran Eriksson regime, but he has little trouble identifying the main reason for his transformation.
“There’s a clear structure in the team,” he said on Saturday evening, recalling matter-of-factly how he had been squeezed out by the previous head coach’s desire “to accommodate everyone”. Like most of his team-mates, he has no axe to grind with Eriksson, but the difference between then and now is clear.
Of course it is ever thus among footballers, for whom the new boss is always an improvement on the old one, but Hargreaves has little doubt that he is reaping the dividends of Steve McClaren’s more pragmatic approach to the job. While Eriksson spent at least the last four years of his reign wrestling with a midfield conundrum that looks straightforward, with the benefit of hindsight and a little foresight on the part of the new head coach, McClaren has quickly built that part of the team around Hargreaves, breaking up the flawed partnership of Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard and banishing David Beckham.
Maligned for so long under Eriksson, Hargreaves impressed again on Saturday, competing with his now familiar aggression and drive and coming within inches of scoring his first international goal with a couple of long-range efforts. Even if Andorra provided only the most modest opposition, he was entitled to reflect on another job well done and another step forward for a team eager to put the less impressive aspects of the Eriksson era behind them.
“At times we tried to accommodate everyone [under Eriksson],” the Bayern Munich midfield player said. “It’s tough when you have so many talented players like Becks [David Beckham], Joe Cole, Lamps and Stevie G. It’s good to have so many good players on the pitch at the same time, but it is also difficult because they are all so gifted going forward that we did not have people to come back. Against good teams, sometimes they can catch you.
Advertisement
“[Now] there is a clear structure within the team and my job within that is to win tackles, get the ball back, protect the back four, help to keep a clean sheet and keep people away from our goal. We did a good job of that [against Andorra]. We have created chances, defended well and look forward to the game [against Macedonia] on Wednesday. We’ve found a structure that has worked well in the last two games.”
Looking beyond Wednesday’s match in Skopje, Hargreaves faces an uncomfortable return to Bayern after spending the fortnight before the international break campaigning for a move to Manchester United. He still hopes to join United in the January transfer window, but he attempted to put the transfer saga behind him on Saturday.
“The Manchester United thing has been and gone,” he said. “Now all I am concentrating is getting six points for England.”