p_ps_sock, I thought that you were measuring Berbatov's performances with the amount of goals he scored, and you thought that giving two more natural goalscorers a chance instead of him would be better for the team. I simply said that Berbatov offers more than just goals, and that you would obviously be disappointed with him unless he turns into RvN for a season and scores a phenomenal amount. If you can't see that he offers quite a bit for the team in our build up play then we'll agree to disagree.
Either way we obviously hope he has a great season
no, my posts about goals were only in response to MUFCGal's repeatedly saying "12 goals in 17 games", which I was pointing out is misleading and taking the 2 games he's scored 8 in away only reinforce the inconsistency.
Anyway, he's never going to be a 30 goals a season striker, but apart from the glaring misses he quite often comes up with when lacking confidence he slows the game down way too often, even when we're breaking fast, when the game is crying out for energy and drive he stands on the ball 35 yards from goal just long enough for the opposition to get 10 men behind the ball and mark everyone up. The moaning at players with a fifth of his experience (and in some cases half his natural talent) does my head in too.
My points about Hernandez and Macheda are not to do with them being more natural goal scorers, it's simply to do with age and the future, I feel he offers us so little on occassions that we'd be far better using those games to bring these players on.
In many ways I fail to see his purpose in the squad, a player of his type should be a game breaker against organised/big sides where space is at a premium and we need a bit of magic but those are the games he completely anonymous in (at best). The times when he is effective (or looks good anyway) are games in which pace, drive, energy and doing the basics right are at least (and sometimes more) effective. Besides which I think we have a genuine superstar in the making on our hands with Anderson and I think playing 3 from carrick/fletcher/scholes/anderson with rooney, nani and valencia suits us much better in most games. If could mentally handle being second string and come in with Ole's attitude (note attitude, not goals) then he'd be almost worth the money we paid, but so far he hasn't been able to.
Of course me making these points almost certainly will mean he'll come good this season and start ripping teams apart on a regular basis, such are my prophetic skills.