Sir Alex Ferguson has admitted that surgery was the only remaining option in safeguarding Owen Hargreaves' United future.

The England international will miss the rest of the season after undergoing knee surgery with the renowned Doctor Richard Steadman in Colorado, but Sir Alex is hopeful that the short-term loss will be a long-term gain for all parties.

"I think that we’ve exhausted every other way of dealing with the situation," the United manager told a press conference. "We tried to manage it, we sent him to a specialist in Leicester who did injections, where the success rate was very good.

"Unfortunately it wasn’t good enough for Owen in the sense that he was still continually feeling great pain in his kneecaps and we had to look at the next stage and that was to send him to a specialist for an operation."

Sir Alex also revealed that the Canadian-born England international will spend a portion of his recuperation in his homeland after completing the second instalment of a two-part process.

"He’ll get his second operation done and he’ll get a break back home in Canada for a little spell," he said. "It’s gone well. These operations aren’t always completely successful, but the surgeon’s very pleased with it. We had a physiotherapist there - John Davin - and he was pleased with the operation, so hopefully he comes back next season a new player."