Give Dimitar Berbatov a break!
It is only normal to react rashly to a defeat, blaming the referee, the FA, Carrick, Carrick’s dad, Carrick’s neighbour, Berbatov, Berbatov’s entire ancestry etc.
Before the Newcastle game, where Berbatov didn’t feature, I got a bit annoyed when someone on Twitter suggested that “Berbatov’s United career might be over… Not even on the bench… he’s let the team down on important occasions too often.”
Obviously, I can’t be sure about the first bit of the statement, but to say that Berba has let us down is nonsense in my eyes. So, I thought I would write a small defence of the man (instead of sending innumerable replies) after I was challenged on Twitter by someone else about my thoughts on Berba.
Here we go:
1. Goals
I remember a time when Berba was routinely criticised for not scoring enough, after all we bought him as a striker and strikers score goals.
That is a fair criticism of his early days at United, but this season he has scored plenty. So, if we just look at goals scored, he’s having a great season. Top scorer in the league and despite people bandying around the old “11 goals in 3 games” stat (which just shows that you can add), he has scored some very important goals.
I came up with at least 6 wins where his goals were decisive: Liverpool(3 goals, score 3-2), Blackburn (5, which fans laughably downplay, 7-1), Sunderland (2, 2-0), Birmingham (3, 5-0), Blackpool (2, 3-2) and Bolton (1, 1-0). Now, please don’t come up with “3 goals in a 5-0 win is not very important”. His goals had a great influence in all of his matches that were worth 18 points.
Of course, you can prove anything with statistics; for example, he’s scored only 4 out of 21 away from home in the league. It’s fine to pick up on this, it’s also fine to pick and choose which games he was cr*p in to prove a different point. But at the end of the day, you could do that for any striker (except Hernandez probably, who is having an awesome season!). The sad thing is that, with Berba, people tend to pick up on some misses, as if strikers should NEVER miss, and then affirm that he has let us down and he is sh*t.
2. General play and teamwork
OK, goals are evidently not the only important part of a player’s performance, even if it’s a striker.
General performance is a lot harder to measure with stats. Let’s look at the criticisms: lazy, bottler, doesn’t track back a la Rooney/Tevez/headless chicken, sulks a lot, doesn’t help out.
Now, about tracking back, tackling and “helping out”, Rooney does it and it looks impressive and is (nonsensical) barometer for energy. Nevertheless people fail to realise that Berba is NOT that kind of player. He has a role within the team, which is assigned by Fergie and I am pretty sure Fergie doesn’t give him the hairdryer because he didn’t run 1000 yards to win the ball back.
The “sulking” bit is another straw being clutched at. Berba does get annoyed on the pitch at times, but I fail to see how that is a negative thing? When Rooney does it, it’s called passion. How is that fair? Man United has always been blessed with spirited dynamic players. What Berba offers is supreme technique and intelligence disguised as nonchalance, his link-up play is magnificent. Yes, it is frustrating as a fan to see him seemingly slowing the play when we are chasing a game to create something, but that’s what his game is about and Fergie clearly accepts it. He has the ability to change games on his own when on form and currently, few United players can do that.
I think fans only criticise him because they expect ‘Rooney-like’ enthusiasm from him, which is wrong because simply, he is not Rooney. Whether you like his ‘lazy’ brilliance is up to you and subjective.
Football is a team sport.
Berbatov is no Maradona. I talked about what I thought were influential goals above and of course, while they were instrumental to a certain extent, the team around him must also take a lot of credit for Man United grinding out the wins while our star player, Rooney, was trying his best to alienate everyone who adored him at the start of the season.
But Berba bashers always find a way to blame the Bulgarian for the club’s results.
When he wasn’t scoring in his first 2 seasons, someone on Twitter pointed a finger at him for, wait for it you are going to love this, COSTING US two FA cups, the Premier League (didn’t specify which year) and the Champions League last year! Mind-blowing nonsense!
So, people think they can blame ONE player for losing us so many competitions in 2 years at the club? So, after scoring quite a few this season and us being top of the league, surely now, using the same erroneous philosophy, Berba IS the only player to thank for us being up there? Why is it that you can blame ONE player when things go wrong, but completely discredit that player’s contribution and congratulate the OTHER players in the team when things go well? It doesn’t make sense!
I am sure I could argue on and on and people will still find a miss here and there to fuel their dislike of Berba. He’s very much like Carrick in that sense. They are constantly (and unfairly) compared to others and people criticise them disproportionately more.
As for whether Berba has let us down or not, I think he never has. He sure had 2 relatively poor seasons, but this season, there has been marked improvement.
He is no Messi, he is no Ronaldo. Don’t expect him to be.
On the question of whether he will leave in the summer or not, there may be a case for selling him, but not because of his previous 2 seasons, which are hold little relevance. Looking at this season, I would love him to stay as he seems to be enjoying his football much more and we have reaped the benefits. He had shown what he can do at Spurs and this season has shown with a bit of confidence in himself and from the manager that he can do a job.
Feel free to share your Berba hate below!