Fantastic start to the season. I hope he keeps it up.
Dimitar Berbatov | 2010/11 Performances
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Nope. I knew he would come good.
No, we should sell him and buy some CF who can't play with Rooney and will throw his toys out of the pram whenever he's told he can't play in big games because Rooney is our main man.
Truly then we would be the best team in Europe, or something.
Truly then we would be the best team in Europe, or something.
Mostly it was me gloating, followed eventually by me with egg on my face
i hope he does, don't think anyone bashing him last season would mind it!! long may it continue
My god what is with all the Berbawanking? He was good today but some people are acting like he is setting the world alight. He has fluffed a few chances and should really have scored 3/4 goals this season already. I'm not a Berba-basher by any means and have always said (hoped) he would come good but there is a long way to go in proving that.
Wow there seems to be a lot of Berba fans on here suddenly. 
I've criticized him just as I criticized Nani. I'm pleasantly surprised at Berba's form but he has a long way to go to prove me wrong yet. Needs to do it over the entire season and in big matches consistently. Just like Nani began to do since January. I'd be very happy if he started showing his potential in a United shirt because there is no doubting his class as a player which makes his failure upto this point even more disappointing.
I've criticized him just as I criticized Nani. I'm pleasantly surprised at Berba's form but he has a long way to go to prove me wrong yet. Needs to do it over the entire season and in big matches consistently. Just like Nani began to do since January. I'd be very happy if he started showing his potential in a United shirt because there is no doubting his class as a player which makes his failure upto this point even more disappointing.
He's all around play is very similar to last season, but his just been more direct and taking up better positions. The one major difference for me is that when he is getting the opportunity to shoot, he doesn't ponder on it like last season and either try to dribble further or pass to someone else and then lose the ball. Very promising start to the season and we can only hope he keeps it up.
That's constructive.
Fair enough. The important part is not so much who said what. But the fact that Berbatov is doing his talking on the pitch, scoring goals and playing well. And earning his starting spot.Truth be told, despite his obvious talent, I don't think he has that winning edge to be exceptional; the thing that made Roy Keane great yet makes seemingly more gifted players like Le Tissier average. I don't mean that in a 'he doesn't track back sense', rather a lack of immediacy of thought and action when in possession, or a certainty of purpose with the ball. I think that's why I never expect him to perform well against our direct rivals in the League or knock out stages of the Champions League. I don't think he's been a failure, simply underwhelming, so in reality we have no reason to sell him other than an unlikely irresistible offer, or more likely, United finding him surplus to needs in the next couple of years.
If you watched him at all at Spurs, you'd know what you wrote there is utter garbage.
People who came to the conclusion that Berbatov either isn't good enough, or his style of play didn't fit, or he didn't have the mentality, and thus wasn't right for Manchester United, are going to look stupid if he does end up showing he was.
Nothing wrong with admitting that. I thought Nani didn't fit because he didn't have the right mentality and even though he was certainly good enough and his style of play complemented many of our players, he'd eventually be sold and make a big name for himself at another big club. Many thought the same.
It's a bit disappointing that even after having an example as recent as Nani, watching him really become a Manchester United player last season, people were still happy to write Berbatov off at the exact same time. You'd think something like that would highlight how quickly things can turn around, and how long it can take players to settle at a club like this, and in the end it would lead to them giving him the benefit of the doubt but...nope, just doesn't happen. It'll probably be Anderson to suffer most of it after Berbatov makes it. Or Evans. Or, as ludicrous as it sounds right now, Hernandez. People sometimes forget just how much of an impact Anderson made in his first season, I think. [1][2]
Everyone wants him to succeed, no doubt, but it doesn't stop some from making unnecessarily harsh and somewhat quick judgements about him. And it happens with player after player after player.
[1]"Anderson has been absolutely superb. The boy has definitely got something special." Sir Alex.
[2] "Scholes is not ready for the shelf - he can play until he's 36. But Anderson absolutely has the qualities to replace him." Sir Alex.
spurs
performing at spurs once week under zero pressure is one thing.
performing at united for an entire season on the biggest stage requires bollocks. the smallest game at united has infinitely more pressure than what berbatov experienced at his biggest games with spurs.
I watched him all the time at Spurs. I simply think, despite his obvious talent, he will never be exceptional. I may be proven wrong but his time at United to date has suggested otherwise.
His general play at Spurs was pretty 'exceptional' - even by United standards.
He's got three
He is a striker. For a striker to be considered exceptional he surely should be scoring more than 1 goal in 2 with Spurs, or more than 1 in 3 with United? The fact that he was dropped for most of our important games last season implies he was far from exceptional.
spurs
performing at spurs once week under zero pressure is one thing.
performing at united for an entire season on the biggest stage requires bollocks. the smallest game at united has infinitely more pressure than what berbatov experienced at his biggest games with spurs.
Well that's bullshit for a start.
And having the bottle to play at United is a complete different matter - he was questioning whether Berbatov has the winning edge, immediacy of thought etc. It is quite evident from his performances at Spurs that he does have that edge.
Forgot the goal in the CS. But the point remains, he should have a few more.
I never said he has performed exceptionally for us, but I don't see how anyone can question the guy's ability. And it's not all about goals - Cantona's goal record was less than a goal every 2 games and he was arguably United's most influential player in the last few decades.
Is he really playing as a striker for us? Even if he is playing in the same kind of areas(which I find somewhat debatable itself), I'd argue it's very evident he's performing a very different role than a simple striker, and because of that he should not be mainly judged on his goals output.
As for him being dropped from big games, I genuinely don't think him being exceptional would be enough to justify him a regular place in the starting line-up unless we had a complete change of tactics in Europe, which seems a bit unnecessary given our success in our current style of play in the competition. I mean, basically, if he plays exceptional in the league it'll almost certainly be in playing alongside a striker, which just isn't the way we play in Europe. The only way he can fit into the team in Europe in this current setup is to play him down the middle and Rooney coming in from the left, and to be honest if he was exceptional I wouldn't be surprised to see us give him a chance in that system, but can you really see him thriving from it? Can you see the team really improving from taking out a winger to play a striker out of position, and playing Berbatov in a role he's never previously thrived in for us or Spurs? I'm not so sure.
There may come a time when we do decide to make a major change to our basic tactics in Europe, and Berbatov might fit in there, but I wouldn't bet on it.
That and he never said he was exceptional for United, thus you were arguing against a point he never really made.
That's my point though. He has undoubted ability, even amongst our players he is exceptional in some of the things he does. I'm just suggesting why his performances are not exceptional. I think he if you watch him in the matches against any of our direct rivals he is caught in possession quite often, he doesn't anticipate being double marked, he doesn't expect a player he is passing to to be tightly marked. Basically, I think he lacks the immediacy of thought in possession so exemplified by Paul Scholes. I don't know why that is but perhaps it is because he spent his career up to age 25 playing for middling teams, and therefore had never needed to utilise that extra facet of a player's game that separates the great from the good.
Once every three or four matches yeah. The main thing for Spurs was his assist/goal output combined.
I'll start at the end! I'm defending a point that I myself made, that his career has never been exceptional.
Sorry, I'm using striker in the generic sense of a forward player. Nevertheless, his goals ratio is unexceptional for a forward player (international excepted).
Apologies for bowdlerising your point but I'm not entirely sure where to address it and thought the end best place to start. Surely if we were signing a player for a record fee it was with a view to him being a first choice forward in Europe? If he doesn't fit our system then perhaps it's because we've had to use a system that excludes him?
Well then you are disputing his ability then - his anticipation amongst other attributes. Me personally, I think it is quite clear that he every single atribute to be a great player for us but was fazed mentally by the challenge of playing for one of the biggest clubs of the world.
And he signed for Bayer Leverkusen at the age of 21 - hardly a middling team by any stretch of the imagination.
Bayer have never won the league in their history! They obviously had one season when he was there where they reached the final stage of every competition, but they also failed at each final hurdle.
I suppose ability is a one of those terms that means different thing to different people. I think he has the ability, it's the application thereof he often lacks. I'm not sure why. I don't know is it simply mental, perhaps it is, but then that would explain the poor application of ability, which is kind of my point!
he had the look of Cantona about him today.
He's not really a forward though is he? A forward implies a player that is forward..
You will easilly catch both wingers, the striker, the leftback, a central midfielder, and sometimes the rightback ahead of Berbatov at the same time. That's half the team.
In old school notation Berbatov is closer to the number 8 than the number 9, but he isn't a 10 either. The closest comparison off the top of my head would be Iniesta for Spain, but with a lot more freedom.
Jumping the gun there.
To be honest I think you're unnecessarily playing with semantics. In my lexicon a forward is anyone whose primary role is attacking, which his undoubtedly is. Anything else is obfuscation.
Honestly? I didn't expect much different this season from last. I wasn't of the opinion that he ought to be sold, but he wasn't my favourite player. He's growing on me quickly now, though. And not just because of the goals he's scored. Those might dry up, and it would still look better than last season. The reason is that he's simply seemed to care more, and worked more. He makes runs for balls that he might or might not make. And that matters a lot.
I was completely against signing him for the money and the effectiveness of his play.
But as soon as he became a United player I've fully supported and defended him and that won't change.
But as soon as he became a United player I've fully supported and defended him and that won't change.
Oh, well then I'd agree, but then why are we talking about him and comparing him to exceptional levels? I'm confused. Do we expect him to be an exceptional striker for us, because of his ability and his price tag? I do agree that a player who's going to be deemed exceptional playing in a role that Berbatov plays would have to have a better record than 1 in 3, and possibly 1 in 2, even if his primary role is not to score. And FWIW, I do understand the reservations you have with him with regards to taking his game from the level of very good - which in my view he looks well on his way to proving he is - to great. Not sure I agree, but I'm sure many understand where you're coming from.
As for the last point, I do think we misjudged something. It might have something to do with Hargreaves' injury and Carrick's drop in form, as that significantly weakens our central options and thus means that if we want to maintain control of the game we're probably going to have to match up with three in the middle - bar a few exceptions - and we weren't planning for that. If Berbatov was a standout in the big games maybe it would've forced our hand, but I just find it very hard to see us playing anything other than three in the middle regardless. Who knows, he might get a few more chances this season.
What do you mean by this? He was the third most productive player in the league behind Rooney and Ronaldo in his two seasons at Spurs, does this not hint at quite a high level of effectiveness?
It is so unfortunate for Berba, that strikers are judged by the number of goals scored. He is so much more to that. I hope he finally gets the recognition he deserves. And for that to happen, he needs to score many goals...unfortunately
I can't really remember to be honest, but I didn't believe he'd be the signing everyone expected. I (think I) felt that stats and highlights didn't really show him in a true light overall, and that he wouldn't fit our playing style.
EDIT: Went looking for the Berbatov thread to see if I'd written anything more specific. This is all I found:
All criticism is not qualitatively or contextually similar.
If I tell you, for example, that it isn't raining at the moment, and then five minutes later it starts to rain, that is an objectively true statement. If it hasn't rained for many months and there is no indication that it will do so any time soon, and so I tell you that it is doubtful that it will rain, and then it does rain, I won't look stupid, because that's a qualified and quite reasonable statement given the evidence. But if I tell you that it certainly won't rain in Manchester in the next six months, given all that I know about the weather in that part of the world, then I'd look stupid.
I'm sure that you understand all of this, so I apologize for even mentioning it, but your first few sentences don't appear to recognize any subtlety of opinion at all. Any definitive and final statement is extremely risky and likely ill-advised in football, of course, and I get tired of saying so, myself. But there has to be a difference between a judgment based on two years of evidence, and one based on two months, for example, or else you are literally arguing that there cannot be a point at which anyone could make a judgment without looking stupid if it turned out to be wrong. That would be absurd. It would certainly be a wrong judgment, of course, but the most rational option given the evidence at the time is often wrong.
Two seasons for a player in their late twenties who had performed exceptionally well at another English club and then cost £30m as a result of those performances is hardly the definition of "quick". Circumstances are all important because a young player is clearly different to a player who is supposedly in the prime of their career. And a foreign player who is making their debut in this league at any age is also different to a player who has not only played in the league for several years, but also starred in it. So, it's unfair and unreasonable, in my opinion, to ignore subtle and reasoned opinion in favor of some kind of rigid all-encompassing dogma.
There's no question that a lot of the criticism of Berbatov was unfair and appeared to be a result of an irrational dislike of the player, but those people looked stupid at the time and continue to do so, regardless of what Berbatov does in the future. That is not, and I would argue, cannot be, the same as suggesting that, after two years of generally underwhelming performances, all evidence up to that point suggested that he didn't suit this team, or that his mentality hadn't been right, not least because it's entirely possible that his mentality has now improved and that he finally feels comfortable with the role that he is expected to fulfill.
I completely agree with the point that I believe that you are making, and I realize that I am being slightly pedantic, but we can only make judgments based on the evidence that is available, plus our experiences of previous situations. The difference with Berbatov, as I've already said, is that age and maturity were far less likely to have been a mitigating factor. At his age, it is not unreasonable to either question whether he will ever find the required form, or even to suggest that he didn't deserve the same amount of time as young players do.
This is exactly where it all went wrong for him
He's been tops so far.
Long may it continue.
Long may it continue.
Its unfortunate for Lee Cattermole that midfielders are judged by their passing ball retention ability.
Extremely unfortunate for Vermaelen that defenders are judged on their defending. As he's the best goalscoring central defender out there.
Its also unfortunate for Rob Green that goalkeepers are judged on their goalkeeping ability. He's a funny guy.
He'll play against Liverpool with the formation Roy Hodgson has been using so far this season.
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