It’s quite baffling to think that a striker at Manchester United could score 21 goals in a season and still face critics. Dimitar Berbatov falls into that category, but when you look closely, it becomes a little more apparent.
Berbatov ended up the joint top goalscorer in the Premier League for 2010/2011 (his former team mate Carlos Tevez sharing the honour) with 20 goals to his name. In comparison, Wayne Rooney netted 11 in the League while Javier Hernandez had 13. All looks well and good, but you’d have been forgiven to think that Berbatov had been out injured after Christmas because his involvement, mainly through the incredible progress from Hernandez, was severely reduced.
To say Berbatov wasn’t important for the club last season would be a ludicrous comment to make. It seems that some fans have already forgotten his performances against Liverpool (Stunning hat-trick), his five goal bonanza against Blackburn, hat-trick against Birmingham and his vital role in the comeback away to Blackpool. Along with his other strikes.
It can be extremely easy to criticise the Bulgarian due to his languid style of playing football. The biggest problem for Berbatov this season has been the arrival of Hernandez. I don’t think Sir Alex even thought the ‘Little Pea’ would have such a huge impact to the season. As I pointed out beforehttp://stretfordenders.net/has-fergie-finally-ditched-the-defensive-approach/, Ferguson has adapted his style somewhat and it looks as if Berbatov won’t be a first choice name if trends continue. Rooney and Hernandez are already on the team sheet.
If we look at the games Berbatov played as a striker with both Rooney and Hernandez, against the latter partnership, it just makes you wonder why the silky striker is not getting a bigger look-in.
Doesn’t take a genius to work out where the better return comes from. And no, I’m not criticising the Rooney & Hernandez pairing – merely indicating that Berbatov isn’t as ‘ineffective’ as many believe.
Then you have to consider that players who don’t play week in week out, or close to it, that they will struggle to turn it on’ so to speak, right away. A perfect example would be the FA Cup semi-final defeat to Manchester City. Berbatov, who wasn’t featuring much towards the end of the season missed two simply glorious chances to give United the lead but fluffed his lines – Whilst it’s so easy to bang on about how poor he was on the day, and I’ll admit I was frustrated at the time, but one would have to imagine that had he been in the team and playing more regularly, that his sharpness would have been that little bit better. Hindsight is a great tool.
And as is usually the case with ‘un-settled’ strikers, the media are swarming around with transfer rumours. To be fair to Dimitar, he’s never expressed a desire to leave and seems content to fight for his place. Competition for place doesn’t appear to be putting him off United and for that, I think we as United fans have to be grateful to him for sticking with us – so far. Not many teams can hold a £30m+ striker on the bench and still field a dangerous team, Chelsea I suppose can.
It seems as if one club has taken immediate action on a possible transfer. Paris St Germain are reportedly lining up an offer believed to be around £10m to bring Berbatov to France although it just doesn’t make any logical sense for United to sell. If Berbatov is happy to sit on the bench and fight for his place, why would you sell him for such a low fee? Unless United recouped the £30m spent on him in 2008, I’d be very surprised if Ferguson allowed the transfer to happen, unless of course Dimitar expressed a desire to leave, which would completely turn the tables around. If that was to happen, I still wouldn’t be happy with the £10m suggested.
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