Or the work-rate.
Dimitar Berbatov | 2009/10 Performances
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran discuss a horrific month of December and a depressing FOUR defeats in a row - the latest coming against Wolves and Newcastle.
They discuss how much blame is on Ruben Amorim and rank our squad against other Premier League teams.
Do we have any chance of avoiding defeat at Anfield?
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I've never said or alluded to any such thing. Check out the title of the thread and that might give you a slight understanding of why I am focused on Berbatov here.
You're acting like a fecking spaz.
Is that so.....
Then what the hell was this?
In reply to this:
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
It may have not been you intention but you reply sure came across like it was all Berbatov's fault the team was so deep till late on.
Spare me your condescending air G.
I know why you are so focused on Berbatov. You've never liked him, have stated it publicly & that has feck all to do with this thread.
I suggest you stick to the issue at hand, namely his performance yesterday rather than simply airing more of your hate of him.
I suggest you look in the mirror first. I'm not the one who started tossing about insults.I'd worry more about his positioning than his work rate tbf. Bearing in mind the slower Riquelme who is real lazy is a top draw midfielder.
We ended up with ''another midfielder because of how deep the whole team was. That is what you are not accepting. Berbatov is the type of player who tends to want to be closer to his midfield at all times to play one two's and link play. The deeper it plays the deeper he will be. & we all know what a having a lone striker as slow a Berbatov that deep causes.
If Rooney had been on pitch instead of him yesterday he would have been totally isolated by our midfield and the rest of the team like he was in Munich. Because the simply played too far form Blackburns goal for too long. We were playing like it was an away European tie against ubber deadly opponents who we were too afraid to attack and squeeze.
Berbatov fits in our transfer-system. I am sure.
Like the old song goes, "Time to, say goodbye..."
unfortunately nobody will pay even half of what we have and i doubt Fergie will lose face by doing another Veron and flog him off for 10-15 million less so i guess we're stuck with him.
unfortunately nobody will pay even half of what we have and i doubt Fergie will lose face by doing another Veron and flog him off for 10-15 million less so i guess we're stuck with him.
He either doesn't have the speed or desire to get into the box though, which is what a good attacking midfielder will do at every opportunity.
We were not that deep though. We were camped in their third for the majority of the match. It's an excuse for people to back up Berbatov in his decision not to bother getting into the box. We were not that deep, judging for the territorial stats they showed at the time.
I've been one of those that have defended Berba vehemently through out his time at United. However, at the most important part of his United career he's bottled it. It's sad really. All the talent in the world but it seems like his style of play is just not what we need. Especially considering the system we've adapted with the squad of players we have, he just doesn't fit in and he seems inept at times. I think we'll have to cut our losses and let him go for our sake and his sake as he is not a backup striker in essence.
I absolutely disagree with "He slowed everything down..." That's rubbish. Veron wasn't right for United at that time, but the notion that he slows things down is rubbish. The teams he has played for, e.g. Sampdoria, Lazio, United, Estudiantes, Argentina, his distribution has been effective and quick. Indeed he is most unlike Berbatov because Berbatov takes ages to release a pass.
The only common denominator between the two is that Berbatov does not fit into United either. It's pointless ridiculing him, but it is even worse when some keep saying he is a "great" player. It doesn't matter. The bottom line is that a player must contribute effectively to the team, and neither Veron nor Berbatov achieved that.
We have been at our best against top teams when we break at speeds. Everyone remembers the Rooney counter attack goal against Arsenal this year and the similar one that Ronaldo scored last year. Now imagine if Rooney had been injured in that game and instead we had Berba in that lone striker role. Does anyone think we could have scored that goal? Not in a million years. Hell, Berba could be 20 yards offside and I still wouldn't put money on him reaching the ball first. He's just too slow and plays too deep for our system of play.
And I'm sorry, we shouldn't need to alter our style for one player, especially when that player is not a proven goal scorer. We did that with Ruud and Ronaldo to a certain extent but both these players were match winners and could be trusted to bang in 20-25 goals a season.
And I'm sorry, we shouldn't need to alter our style for one player, especially when that player is not a proven goal scorer. We did that with Ruud and Ronaldo to a certain extent but both these players were match winners and could be trusted to bang in 20-25 goals a season.
For the record, I wouldn't recommend Berba for the bench either. He simply doesnt have the mentality to play for united.
I will be glad to see the back of him!!!!!!!!!
I'm not sure about the last bit of your post but this is basically the conclusion I've come to now. He has bags of ability, but just doesn't have the kind of strong mentality required to play for a club of United's stature. He's the kind of player who looks magnificent at a team like Spurs where he's clearly the best and everyone hails his every languid move. But at United we're used to having the best footballers and players need to keep pushing themselves further.
On top of that he's just too much of a luxury player who does well only when everything is set up for him to do so. He likes to play deep which means that you need to have at least two players apart from the striker who get into the box regularly. And we don't have that. Our wide players rarely score. All in all it's too much of a rejig for a player that doesn't seem to have the right mentality and bottle.
I've never entered the childish "Berbatov lol v Tevess!!11" debate but after watching MOTD2 last night, you can see the energy and fight that the small man gives City whilst Berbatov brings a few nice passes and that's about it.
I don't think Berbatov is a United player - I just can't find an argument for him anymore.
I don't think Berbatov is a United player - I just can't find an argument for him anymore.
Look, Tevez was not that great last season... or he'd still be hear and we'd all be happy instead of miserable cnuts.
Not sure about that - if he'd been better last season, he would presumably have cost even more. And we couldn't affrod him as it is.
People need to forget about Tevez - the greedy cnut wanted £150k a week or whaterver, and his owners wanted £30m+.
We simply don't have that money for players - or we'd be signing David Villa right now, and by most accounts he's better than Tevez.
Not sure about that, wasn't the £25.5m a pre-agreed price that we had to pay to sign him, agreed when we took up the loan option
Incidentally, it doesn't appear to be the same price City paid
£47 million: the bill for Carlos Tevez to cross the Manchester divide | Manchester City - Times Online
Price was set wasn't it? Apart from that your spot on....
Just imagine if we'd let City sign him...
I think you've answered your own question there... you think Joorabchian was ever going to let us have him for £25m when City were willing to pay something like half as much again?
I don't think a price is ever genuinely fixed in the murky world of transfer dealings. Just look at some of the "collapsed" transfers of the past, like Ronaldinho - we'd allegedly fixed a price, only for ti to suddenly change at the last minute etc...
Even it £25m, it's questionable whether we had the funds to stretch to that, when we needed to spend £17m(?) on a new winger to replace Ronaldo.
You can see why Owen on a free suddenly looked a very tempting option!
I think he brought Berbatov to prepare us for life without Ronaldo.
A front four of Rooney, Tevez, Berbatov and A.N. Other would have given us a nice balance of graft and creativity to cope post-Ronaldo. It also made sense to get Berbatov in a season before Ronaldo left, to help bed him into the team.
He was probably also aware that he risked losing Tevez to the highest bidder regardless, so needed to get at least one new big-name striker in last season, to try and have some continuity if we lost Ronaldo and Tevez at the same time.
Turns out we faced the worst case scenario, with Tevez and Ronaldo simultaneously fecking us off for a big pay day in pastures new.
This season might have turned out differently if we'd managed to sign Benzema but there was only one winner in that particular bidding war, so we ended up with Owen on a free as a stop-gap signing. Sod's law that both him and Rooney stay fit for almost the entire season, then end up both injured at the same time. Oh well.
He's certainly not match-fit. That was his first game in almost 4 months.
i also think that was the point but how on Earth would you like to "replace" Ronaldo with Berbatov who -in many respects is -in dircet oppostion to Ronaldo (compare pace, postion on the filed, influence on team mates, golas scored and set up, meantal atributes etc blah blah blah).
He was never meant to be a direct replacement.
I just reckon he was seen as a proven PL goal-scorer who could link up with Rooney in the same way he had linked up with Robbie Keane and help us steamroll mid to lower league teams that park the bus (something Ronaldo always excelled at)
Which, to be fair, is what we've started to see this season in most games they've played together. They never really gelled last season but have definitely been much more on each other's wavelength in 09/10.
It just turns out that playing Rooney up front on his own has been a revelation in big/away games and Berbatov has been marginalised.
It was not about replacing Ronaldo directly but preparing for life after, which means playing a different brand of football. Don't you notice how differently we played last season to the previous ones, it involved more patient play with alot of play going through the middle. We played far more possession football and there were less counter attacks.
Berbatov is key to possession type football, he adds composure to the play and it's less direct. It's like Zlatan replacing Eto at Barca, Barca are a possession team but with Zlatan it increases in my opinion. Their domination of Arsenal in the first leg is a testimony to that.
wel yeah, that's why I wonder why Fergie wanted to accomodate a player of Berbatov type to the team which was desinged to get best out of Ronaldo. I just wonder why - with Berbatov signing -we didn't get a player to support Berbatov. We changed one cogwheel with another which didn't fit the mechanism. another cog would make it work (maybe) but Fergie didn't find/buy/bring up that other cog
Macheda may be fit but he was awful yesterday and is along way off first team material
last season was a dire to watch, don't even mention this becasue it still irks me.
my scepticism to Bebratov is deeply rooted in last season. I don't mind him that much this term.
I'm not sure if Rooney does prefer playing up front on his own. He's never done that with England, and yet he was right up there at the top of the European qualifying scoring ranks. I'm sure he'd love to work alongside another striker for whom each could get the best out of the other
I think what he clearly likes is being able to play in and around the penalty area, and get a few poacher goals he never used too
I think we was playing Ronaldo in a type of football that didn't actually suit his strenghts and at times he was looking like Becks just swinging crosses in instead of constantly swapping positions with the strikers. In my opinion it was all part of the plan of transition for life without him and for the majority of the season you have to say it worked, it's just unfortunate our main lad got injured.
I can't remember what interview but I think Wazza said he loves the role. I meant to put that in Bold, typing from my phone and all.
Bayern Munich and Juventus might be other options but I don't see Fergie selling for less than £15M.
Territorial stats don't tell the whole story IMO. I remember constantly shouting at the screen that we were too deep. We only really camped in their half and in their box in the last 8 minutes. By then Berbatov and Nani, 2 of our 3 better attacking threats of the day had lost their heads, with one moaning, sulking and being an embarrassing drama queen while the other was trying to do it all by himself. While men like Park were simply lost and poor Valencia was left doing every good attacking thing alone till he gave up too. It was plain awful from us.
Excellent post.
AC Milan
It's not that we'd given up it's that you'd given up long ago.
Before the game you said they'd overrun our midfield - turned out well there eh?
You're just a bit pessimistic.
Before the game you said they'd overrun our midfield - turned out well there eh?
You're just a bit pessimistic.
You obviously didn't think about it very long.
We've scored loads of late goals this season. In fact, it's become quite unusual for us not to score a late goal.
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