New Manchester City signing Owen Hargreaves has blamed his old club Manchester United for the injuries that kept him out of first-team football for much of his three years there.

The midfielder, who scored in his City debut against Birmingham, has pointed the finger at a series of knee injections received during his time at United for the lengthy injury lay-off, according to The Mirror.

"After my first season, I had a bit of a tendon problem but didn’t realise the magnitude of it. I played and it got a little bit worse," Hargreaves said.

"We treated it and it got significantly worse after that, through the injections I had. Basically, I was left to pick up the pieces, which was incredibly frustrating. That was surgery and that was 18 months gone.

"They said it would help and that I wouldn’t have any side effects from the injections. That obviously wasn’t the case and if I’d known I could have had a reaction like that, I wouldn’t have done it."

Hargreaves moved to Manchester City last month after fielding interest from a number of clubs including Spurs, Aston Villa, West Brom and QPR.