Ferguson has greater level of insurance

The arrival of Owen Hargreaves at Old Trafford has increased Alex Ferguson's options in midfield, reports Daniel Taylor

It took Alex Ferguson and Manchester United a year of hard negotiating to prise Owen Hargreaves from Bayern Munich but there are already signs it was worth the wait. No Chelsea player could beat Edwin van der Sar from 12 yards at Wembley on Sunday but Hargreaves succeeded with a free-kick from outside the penalty area in one of his first training sessions. There was applause from his team-mates and an appreciative smile from Ferguson, happily convinced that 12 months of hard work and perseverance is about to pay off.

Hargreaves has endured an exasperating beginning to life at Old Trafford but, after being restricted to the role of a frustrated observer during the pre-season tour of the Far East, there have been encouraging signs that he has recovered from his tendinitis problems and will be prominently involved in Sunday's opening game, at home to Reading.

He has been lined up for the unglamorous yet vital role in midfield of "water carrier" (copyright: Eric Cantona) and it presents his manager with a complex dilemma about the best way to structure his team in pursuit of a 10th Premier League title.

For the first few weeks of the season the composition of Ferguson's midfield should be relatively simple to predict. Hargreaves will be deployed to win the ball, make interceptions, snap into the tackle and patrol the area just in front of defence. In doing that he will allow Michael Carrick to play a slightly more adventurous role further upfield, instigating United's attacks with his passing expertise, leggy stride and awareness of space.

The intriguing part comes when Paul Scholes, currently rehabilitating from a knee injury, returns to fitness and all three players are available, particularly for Champions League matches. Ferguson is acutely aware that European teams are at their most dangerous when hitting opponents on the counterattack and he has brought in Hargreaves with the specific aim of providing a greater level of insurance for when the team does what it does best, attack.

One of United's shortcomings during Ferguson's years in charge is that they can be so committed to breaking down the opposition that they are vulnerable to being caught on the break - a flaw which Arsenal have been particularly good at exposing in the past - and this is where Hargreaves, playing in either a 4-2-3-1 or 4-1-4-1 formation, will be at his most effective.

"Owen will bring speed and energy to our midfield," Ferguson explained. "His experience in Europe and the speed at which he covers the ground will make our midfield very strong, particularly defending against the counterattack. He has great defensive awareness and he also has bags of European experience after seven years at Bayern, which is magnificent for a man as young as him."

Hargreaves should realise that there will be occasions when he is either on the bench or rested from the squad. Yet he is quicker than any of Ferguson's other central midfielders and considerably better in the tackle, and even if his passing ability is noticeably inferior to that of Carrick and Scholes he rarely loses the ball.

He is also blessed with the kind of self-belief that is essential for any sportsman wishing to reach the top of his profession.

"Owen is an extremely solid person," said Gary Neville, his England team-mate and United captain. "If you give him a job to do he will do it. He won't lose concentration during a match."

Ferguson has certainly recruited a sturdy character, given the way Hargreaves was booed by England fans at the start of the World Cup and responded with such valour and enterprise that he was eventually named as the supporters' player of the tournament. At Bayern he held his own when the famously confrontational goalkeeper Oliver Kahn singled him out for criticism, and those who know him best say he has a quality that Ferguson always appreciates - the ability to respond positively to adversity rather than feeling sorry for himself.

Take the summer of 2003, for instance, when Kicker, the German football magazine, and Sport Bild, the highest-circulation sports newspaper in Europe, previewed the forthcoming Bundesliga season by printing Bayern's projected first XI. Hargreaves was completely overlooked, with Kicker predicting the midfield quartet would be Jens Jeremies, Michael Ballack, Sebastian Deisler and Ze Roberto.

Yet Hargreaves started the season and on the second weekend Bayern were losing at Hannover until they earned a free-kick in stoppage-time. Ottmar Hitzfeld, the coach, signalled that Hargreaves should take it and he scored from 25 yards.

It is a knack of which his new team-mates have quickly become aware.