Berbatov

Godfather

Atleast someone not talking bollox

devilish

The tactics were all wrong yesterday but that's not an excuse for doing nothing.

FlawlessThaw

Who would have thought the Chief would have been the only one to speak sense in this thread.

I guess in the land of the blind, the one eyed man really is king.

Merman

Spot on.

Name Changed

That goes for all our players. We need all our top players to perform. Carrick, Rooney, Ronaldo, Tevez, Berbatov, Vidic, everyone. And we need it now.

Kaka83

Can't believe Berbatov's done nothing of note since the first leg against Inter, and no one gives a damn. How long has it been since he had a good game?

The way I see it, we were much better in the 2nd half as soon as he went off.

He offers absolutely nothing when the chips are down. He's more like a fair-weather player and needs everybody else around him to be on song. He's done nothing to justify why he should be automatic first choice. Being awesome for spurs doesn't translate to being awesome for the ECL/EPL champions.

Look at our Goals Scored column...Berba has been ever present in our team during this campaign, and fergie has used him as the fulcrum of our attack. It is now safe to say that this experiment has failed. 49 goals heading into April is ridiculous. So much for the improvement that he was supposed to bring, breaking up our double winning attack in the process.

Zaki has scored more than him in the Prem. And Zaki hasn't scored in 2009! And he was in the Egyptian league this time last year.

Seriously, we have fallen way back as an attacking force. Yes Ronaldo isn't playing well, and neither is Tevez. But we just spent 30m to ensure that in the event of a drop off in quality, we have someone to help us out. Not someone who hides when the going gets tough.

Saying that, I don't think he's really gelled with his team-mates, not because they have to learn how to play with him, but because he makes very little effort to actually adapt to the way we play. It's a two-way street and I think our boys are probably the easiest players to play with (all good players/teams are easy to play with). He hasn't even played a solid 90min for us against quality (let alone any) opposition so far this season. His career with us is just going to be a few good moments here and there married with a few more moments of 'Where did Berbatov go?' *ten minutes later* 'Oh, there he is' Repeat x duration of match

CptMarvel

Sums it up perfectly.

Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber

Kaka83

Crerand Legend

And therein lies the problem,too many of them are off colour at present.The possible replacements like Anderson and Nani dont seem to be able to do anything right at the moment either.The lad Tosic looks like he wont set the world on fire anytime shortly either.The sum of all that is we are pure shit at the minute,but as sure is Liverpool winning is temporary so is our loss of form.The two weeks now will be in our favour,fear not the suicide watch will be in full swing on RAWK before much longer

Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber

You expected a slow, languid, injured player to do what in a team with 10 men?

Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber

& Our manager too. He has been Rafalising his tactics of late. i.e Ronaldo upfront with Berbatov, Schole and Giggs in the same side, Carick dropped and one winger etc

devilish

Its not the first time he didn't worked for the team. So cut the crap.

If he was injured then he should have said it to SAF. Rest assured that he wouldnt have played an injured player, not again fecking Fulham.

amolbhatia100

Its berbatov. Theres always an excuse. Next time it will be due to a mosquito bite or a blister on his gums.

reddev07

I still think people are too harsh on him

buckooo1978

He wasn't injured until late in the half and before that he had contributed nothing and we may as well have had 9 men out there

Berbatov isn't judged on 1 game tho - it's been the whole season and there are very few games where you came away thinking he is excellent - 30 mill for a player his age was a gamble and I think the fact that tevez has struggled this year is down to his lack of games to accomodate berbatov - I expect more for what we paid and in the games where we really needed effort and work against the likes of Liverpool, everton etc he clearly is useless in a fight

It's not totally personal tho - fergie is making a mistake changing our tactics in the league to accomodate berbatov - we play a lot less direct and are scoring a lot less as a result - if it wasn't for our defence we'd not be still leading - the team looks a lot more potent without berbatov - the whole situation reminds me of heron and how we went to a 5 man midfield to accomodate him

Our system last season was excellent so why change it?

CptMarvel

I remember all the talk of a quadruple this time last year, and being 7 points clear with a game in hand just over a year ago. I also remember a perfect strike force that didn't rely on our winger to get all our goals and I remember Tevez as first choice striker and not someone who made way for Saha on his rare moments of fitness.

devilish

you are a bit too harsh here. Stating that I wonder where the 'Ruud was too lazy and should be sold' brigade had gone. Compared to Berbatov, Ruud seems like Rooney on adrenalin.

B Cantona

If this season is as good as it gets for Berbatov in a United shirt, for me we've wasted our money on him. I don't think it's been good enough personally

His 1 goal in 3 is reasonable, hardly pulling up any trees. It's more that he just doesn't ever seem to be really involved in the game. It goes on around him, and I'm not happy he works hard enough to change that

I remember a run and shot he had away against Spurs. He burst with power and purpose, they couldn't stop him, and he was unlucky not to score. He's capable of that, and yet I struggle to remember many other moments like that at all this season

Needs to start pulling something out of the bag

Ekeke

Right. So our strikeforce wasnt quite perfect last season.

We spent £30 million on a striker.

Is it perfect now? Is it even better? Debatable certainly.

The one thing you cant argue is that he's given us another body up front which Saha was unable to do for the majority of last season. But we could have had that for a tenth of the price.

CptMarvel

Fuck knows mate and until we have a run of games with a properly functioning midfield we aren't going to know.

Fergies Formula

Im not gonna make excuses, he has disappointed me, needs to do a lot more and look to make a difference in every game with his unquestionable skill instead of letting games pass him by. Still have my belief that he will come good.

Crerand Legend

Really needs to be now,if ever we needed big performances it is from now on

Tevez's Mum

With any fortune Tevez will pull this out of the bag for us and put in some performances like he did for West Ham and save us like he saved them! Our attack isn't functioning and is lacking ideas. Also general team form is low, someone has to pull this out of the bag before we throw these trophies away!

Name Changed

A bit harsh mate. You really don't like Berbatov.

beardsleybob

The whole reason we bought Berba was to make the difference when we really needed it (Boro and Bolton to name a few). This is his time to stand up and be counted. Can't blame his settling in as he's already claimed he's fitting in and he has been there for about 7 months. We need to see performances from him NOW, otherwise his season will have been a failure mostly

Name Changed

In some games he has looked class whilst in some games he has looked terrible.

The settling in period is well and truly over and I agree, he needs to start putting in good consistent performances.

I think he will.

Johnno

I've been going on about Berbatov for some time now; many of you thought I was mad, bad or just a stupid lad but now it seems when the results aren't going our way, all of a sudden everyone else can see what I saw in him all season, as per below threads.

A big fuck off to you all!

Buying Berbatov a mistake?

Tevez

Why Johnno bums Tevez

Eto'odinho

Excellent player wrong fitting

CptMarvel

Oi, muppet, no ones opinions changed, he's had a bad spell so all the haters have got more vocal.

Livvie

He's a very skilled player, but I'm not sure he's a real team player.

If he played for Liverpool, how many of his supporters on here would be saying the same things they are now?

I'm not anti Berbatov, but he hasn't .. imo ... yet shown real consistency.

Escobar

As much as I love Tevez, he isnt in the form he was for WH and last season for United, his physical conditon, first touch, dribbling, finishing do look worse.

Usually, you'd think Ronaldo would save us, but again, he's not able to do that as he did last season. His body language also states that it's not working as it should be

Escobar

IMO the main reason why it hasnt clicked is because Berbatov isnt dynamic enough. He lacks that explosivness that Rooney, Ronaldo, Tevez, even Park or Nani have. That's why I'm still not sure if he was the right striker for our team. He needs to show that again, as he did for Spurs at time

CptMarvel

No one could disagree, but who in the team has this year?

Livvie

Probably no one for 100 per cent of the time.

I like Carrick - quiet player who just gets on with it, and generally gives his all.

Jonny Evans?

Giggs?

amolbhatia100

Actually that was a snipe at people who keep coming to his defence for every little thing. Not his fault actually.

Cina

I can't believe people are still licking his arse so much. He's gotten goals and assists, but really, he's been poor, there's been fuck all matches where he has been the stand out player or even one of the best players.

For 30.75m, that's just not on.

Sir A1ex

This tells a story... not good enough for £30m...

Redcafe Man of the Month positions:

March: 17. Berbatov 0 / 2
February: 7. Berbatov 2 / 48
January: 6. Berbatov 6 / 334
December: 10. Berbatov 2 / 72
November: 12. Berbatov 1.5 / 69
October: 3. Berbatov 4 / 227
September: 14. Berbatov 0/ 64

...that's one man of the match all season (against championship opposition in the cup!), along with four 2nd places and five 3rds.

I know GD won't give away anything about the standings for player of the season until it's done, but if you average those out he'll be struggling to make top 10.

Brwned

It tells a story that some players take longer to settle in than others, does it not?

Sir A1ex

Possibly, and I was saying just that for months. But I was hoping to see a pattern something like this:

March: 1. Berbatov 10 / 250
February: 3. Berbatov 7 / 148
January: 6. Berbatov 6 / 334
December: 10. Berbatov 2 / 72
November: 12. Berbatov 1.5 / 69
October: 3. Berbatov 4 / 227
September: 14. Berbatov 0/ 64

Thing is, he seems a bit too settled down a lot of the time...

Anderson Searl

Bit by bit becoming my thoughts

Early days though folks