Owen Hargreaves: Manchester City Midfielder Is EPL's New Comic Book Villain

Like a villain from a DC comic (or Carlos Tevez), Manchester City newcomer Owen Hargreaves has stoked the flames of the intense rivalry with Manchester United with his trashing of United's medical staff.

Not content with just showing his old employers what they were missing when he scored in his City debut in the 2-0 Carling Cup win over Birmingham City, Hargreaves has now severed ties beyond repair at Old Trafford after claiming he was a "guinea pig" at the club.

He said of his treatment by Manchester United's physicians—"I received some injections but my tendon was never the same."

"After the injections, I tried to get back on my feet and they said my tendon was good, but it felt like I was made out of glass. That obviously had a huge impact."

"With my tendon injury, I've had to be a guinea pig for a lot of these treatments... They said it would help. Basically, I was left to pick up the pieces, which was incredibly frustrating." 

But in an interview with another newspaper, the Daily Mail, just over three weeks ago, Hargreaves said of the same doctors—"The guys were great, too. It's a wonderful club. The people behind the scenes are terrific. Some of the guys on the medical staff have become great friends."

"Great friends," who Hargreaves is now saying treated him like a guinea pig? Hardly the sort of thing one would expect a man to say publicly about great friends.

It's no surprise Manchester United are now set to release an official statement about the issue, considering they continued to invest millions in this man halfway through his contract, despite little possibility of his return.

And it's also not surprising Sir Alex Ferguson has his backroom team analysing Hargreaves' comments, setting straight what are rather libelous quotes.

Once respected at Old Trafford despite crossing the Manchester divide, unlike Carlos Tevez, Hargreaves seems to have lost any credibility he had left on the red side of town.

The 30-year-old midfielder did try a bit of damage control by also saying, "All the people there [at United] are lovely and everybody tries their best," but to then criticise what they do hardly smacks of a guy who isn't slamming the club.

And considering the interview last month came at a time when he was without a contract, and that Hargreaves is now getting his pockets lined by Manchester City, it seems the former England international is saying what he really thinks.

There are already a few comic book villains in Premier League football.

We have Joey Barton as Spiderman's nemesis, Venom, or Mario Balotelli as the Joker, and now it seems there could be a new member in the echelon of football's bad guys.

The high-ranking, well-respected, angle-faced Hargreaves now looks less like Harvey Dent and more like Two-Face.

A clean-cut district attorney-like figure at Manchester United, Owen "Two-Face" Hargreaves has turned into his villainous alter ego at Manchester City.