Dimitar Berbatov set to leave Manchester United, is Welbeck really a better option?

Robbo · 14 Mar 2012 at 23:22

Okay, let's see how this goes then.

I think Berbatov is a fantastic player and it's frankly insulting that he rarely gets a game. There are plenty of systems that Man Utd can use to accommodate him and both his link up play and technical ability are second to none in the team.

Welbeck is a promising player but he still lacks in quite a few areas and I don't think he should be starting almost every game.

Berbatov is looking to leave now and who can blame him:

Manchester United's record-signing, Dimitar Berbatov, could be forced to leave Old Trafford in the summer, Sir Alex Ferguson has confirmed.

The £30.75million forward has found first-team places difficult to come by since being left out of the United squad for last season's UEFA Champions League final defeat by Barcelona.

And, on the eve of a last-16 Europa League second leg tie with Athletic Bilbao, Ferguson confessed the Bulgarian is set to leave at the end of the current campaign.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11667/7596514/Berbatov-set-to-leave

It's not as if he hasn't impressed when given a chance this season either.

Should he be essentially forced out or should Sir Alex give him more of a chance?

Rich_L · 14 Mar 2012 at 23:25

There has to be more to it than meets the eye, I find it highly unlikely that Berbatov's exclusion can be put down to wanting to bring through younger players when you have Giggs and Scholes still on the pitch

Definitely off in the summer and should be plenty of clubs who'll take him as well, back to Spurs for 2 million quid probably

peterattheboro · 14 Mar 2012 at 23:31

I rate Berba highly. I don't want him to stay at United where he's just insulted really by not getting games. He could walk into most other premiership sides and I'd like to see him play a more important role for someone who deserves him.

Think he'll go abroad though

( Also IBTL

)

DB_SamX · 14 Mar 2012 at 23:33

I don't blame him either for wanting first team football yet I don't think he should go.

The Running Man · 14 Mar 2012 at 23:35

Rich_L said:
There has to be more to it than meets the eye, I find it highly unlikely that Berbatov's exclusion can be put down to wanting to bring through younger players when you have Giggs and Scholes still on the pitch

Definitely off in the summer and should be plenty of clubs who'll take him as well, back to Spurs for 2 million quid probably

When they dropped him completely for the cl final it was surely all over. why hold onto him for another 12 and not sell for more money if he isnt going to play?

welbeck seems to be second choice and hernandez 3rd for the minute but hernandez is creeping back up to no.2 in my opinion.

Tom84 · 14 Mar 2012 at 23:54

Jeez Robbo you could have started a better thread than this to test the water

tbh as much as I like Berbatov as a player he's a bit too much of a luxury player for us to play week in week out and his talent probably does deserve better than how he's being treated at United.

The way I look at it is (and I touched on this the last time it was brought up) when Rooney is injured Berbatov should play they cannot play together away from home though, at OT it's a different story because 9 times out of 10 we're the team in possession, we can't go away from home though and have them both dropping deep giving us no out ball. I assume last season one was given strict instructions to be the furthest forward but it didn't work and it was tried once this season after Berbatovs 5 goals in 2 OT games and we lost 3-0 away to Newcastle and we were awful on the day.

As for whether Welbeck is the better option, in our formation he is, because like Hernandez he's only intention in occupying the opposition defensives and running in behind towards goal. Like Hernandez Welbeck's movement off the ball is also far more influential than what Berbatovs brings when Rooney is also in the starting XI.

Ill be sad to see Berbatov go as I am with most players who leave United but he deserves to play for someone week in week out.

FrankJH · 15 Mar 2012 at 06:33

Berba's record at Utd , over all the years he has been at the club, isnt great at all. First two seasons he was practically non-existant, wihtout even considering his price tag.

3rd season he (eventually) did very well, although there were still many games which he started which passed him by. He did well to score 20 in the league, but it has to be said that 10 goals in 3 league games flatters that total considerably ....or shows how badly he did in the other games

On his day he can supply more than goals - but this seemingly rarely happens for Utd, when he works hard he looks like the £30m player Utd bought, but far too often he looks like the not too interested player from the 1st two seasons

Welbeck may not be as technically good but he fits Utd's play much better, and is 10 years younger, so will hopefully be one for the future. He can also fit in more places within the team (wide or central), even though personally I prefer Chicharito to both of them

While I can kinda see why Utd needed him just in case this season, really should have sold him last summer for £10m +, Utd will be lucky to get that with only a year left on his contract

The Running Man · 15 Mar 2012 at 14:04

I've seen that welbeck is stronger on the ball and with his back to goal holding it up however hernandez is better in a one on one.

Ideally you'd have a player who can do both equally well . Rooney can do both. Berba can too but is less likely to get one on one due to his lower pace.

will welbeck ever become a great composed finisher or will hernandez develop better strength and play on the ball? if not then are we wasting our time when players like aguero or pato are around (and are or were) available to buy if we really want to compete on a level playing field with barca ability wise?

Gilly · 15 Mar 2012 at 14:16

cm1179 · 15 Mar 2012 at 14:16

rooney covers a lot of cracks left by welbeck and hernandez. berbatov doesn't need rooney to cover any cracks.

i don't know how much rooney is on but he is worth every penny to united (even though he isn't in the top 5 pl strikers in my and a lot of others, including managers opinion. (ba is better for a start) but that is irrelevant as it works for united and he is the symbol of man utd's attack, a strong voice and a bitey attitude all of this is very important.

welbeck isn't anywhere near as good as berbatov but fits fergusons system better, they're leading the pl so something is obviously working and ferguson doesn't want to change this. the problem is, by not giving berbatov a fair chance, how does ferguson know that united wouldn't be further ahead in the pl and still in the cl? he doesn't.

berbatov is united's best striker (technically) but not statistcally but then how could he ever be their best striker statistically if he's never given a chance.

united knew what kind of player he was at spurs and this was reflected in the price they paid for him but it seems that within a year, ferguson decided he wasn't the kind of player he wanted. i don't understand how he couldn't come to this conclusion following the 2+ yrs he'd had at spurs. it's an incredible amount of cash to spend on a player and then decide you'd rather keep him on the bench?

hernandez had a good impact first season but doesn't seem to be reproducing that. welbeck doesn't convince me at all, rooney makes him stand out and makes him look far better than he actually is.

i'd take berbatov back at spurs, his finishing, vision, positioning is top draw and it's a shame we don't get to see enough of it.

The Running Man · 15 Mar 2012 at 14:19

Gilly said:
No.

no to which part? welbeck getting better or us competing with barca ?

8)incidentally i agree with the above post. rooney has been carrying us at times. but id put money as top 5 being: rvp, drogba, aguero, rooney, someone else. their rank fluctuates depending on form.

Gilly · 15 Mar 2012 at 14:19

The Running Man said:
no to which part? welbeck getting better or us competing with barca ?

8)incidentally i agree with the above post. rooney has been carrying us at times.

No to the thread title. Welbeck is not, and never will be, a better option.

Shamikebab · 15 Mar 2012 at 14:20

I think we're torn at the moment. Fergie clearly doesn't like Berbatov and seems to only use him if he has no other option. We should have sold him last summer when he had good value.

Now we're stuck with two options who aren't good enough to start for United. They both might be in the future but in the meantime it leaves us relying a lot on Rooney's contribution.

Tom84 · 15 Mar 2012 at 14:25

cm1179 said:
the problem is, by not giving berbatov a fair chance, how does ferguson know that united wouldn't be further ahead in the pl and still in the cl? he doesn't.

At the risk of repeating myself we tried Rooney & Berbatov last season for long periods and ended up with the worst away record in the league. We tried Rooney & Berbatov once this season and ended up losing 3-0 at Newcastle. So there's your proof that we wouldn't be further ahead if Berbatov was playing

EDIT:

cm1179 said:
united knew what kind of player he was at spurs and this was reflected in the price they paid for him but it seems that within a year, ferguson decided he wasn't the kind of player he wanted. i don't understand how he couldn't come to this conclusion following the 2+ yrs he'd had at spurs. it's an incredible amount of cash to spend on a player and then decide you'd rather keep him on the bench?

Very few players we buy are with the intention of playing week in week out, we actually wanted Berbatov from Spurs the same summer we signed Tevez but he'd only been with Spurs for one year at that time so we had to wait. Berbatov was bought to be part of the squad, to give us something different that Rooney & Tevez had and in that first season he did actually displace Tevez (hence why Tevez wanted to and did leave at the end of Berbatov's first season) but he was never guaranteed to play every week just as Cole, Yorke, Solskjaer & Sheringham didn't play every week.

The Running Man · 15 Mar 2012 at 14:27

Shamikebab said:
I think we're torn at the moment. Fergie clearly doesn't like Berbatov and seems to only use him if he has no other option. We should have sold him last summer when he had good value.

Now we're stuck with two options who aren't good enough to start for United. They both might be in the future but in the meantime it leaves us relying a lot on Rooney's contribution.

but that is dangerous talk because it begs the question of why that has to be the case. and if i was to go there id have to reference the manager in the debacle somewhere. Which would descend into fergie won this or played Jones where<?

true story bro.

cm1179 · 15 Mar 2012 at 14:28

Tom84 said:
At the risk of repeating myself we tried Rooney & Berbatov last season for long periods and ended up with the worst away record in the league. We tried Rooney & Berbatov once this season and ended up losing 3-0 at Newcastle. So there's your proof that we wouldn't be further ahead if Berbatov was playing

your proof is you tried it once? what about the season before that when you reached the champions league final and welbeck was still on loan?

or is it easier to just admit berbatov was a mistake?

Tom84 · 15 Mar 2012 at 14:34

cm1179 said:
your proof is you tried it once? what about the season before that when you reached the champions league final and welbeck was still on loan?

or is it easier to just admit berbatov was a mistake?

No the proof is that we tried it last season for long periods (did you even read what I said?)

As for last season and reaching the Champions League final do you know how many goals Berbatov got in the Champions League last season? 0. Hernandez scored both goals to see off Marseilles in the first knock out round? Hernandez scored 1 of our 3 goals to see off Chelsea in the quarters (Rooney & Park the others) and Hernandez partnered Rooney against Shalke in the Semis. Berbatov played very little in the Champions League run last season and was certainly by no means anything to do with us reaching the final (then or in 2009 for that matter)

EDIT: Was Berbatov a mistake? Hard to say, he certainly hasn't been a 30m player for us so I guess from that standpoint he was a mistake. Forgetting the price tag though he won us a far few matches in his first season and last season in the PL (more often than not at OT) so he more than contributed to those league titles so it's hard to say he was a mistake from that point of view. Overall I'd say he's been an okay signing, not fantastic but not really an undoubted flop either.

cm1179 · 15 Mar 2012 at 14:51

Tom84 said:
that first season he did actually displace Tevez (hence why Tevez wanted to and did leave at the end of Berbatov's first season)

as far as i remember, you were offered tevez for £25m. say what you will about tevez but his workrate on the pitch is up there with the best. surely tevez now for £25m would've been a better buy? i doubt very much he'd have gone AWOL like he did at city and if the suspicion of his attitude was what really put ferguson off (as opposed to his actual stance of saying he didn't think he was worth it) it's worth recalling that berbatov's attitude towards jol was pretty unimpressive towards the end aswell.

Tom84 · 15 Mar 2012 at 15:04

cm1179 said:
as far as i remember, you were offered tevez for £25m. say what you will about tevez but his workrate on the pitch is up there with the best. surely tevez now for £25m would've been a better buy? i doubt very much he'd have gone AWOL like he did at city and if the suspicion of his attitude was what really put ferguson off (as opposed to his actual stance of saying he didn't think he was worth it) it's worth recalling that berbatov's attitude towards jol was pretty unimpressive towards the end aswell.

We did try to keep Tevez but he wasn't interested. While I agree Tevez wouldn't of pulled the AWOL stunt he has at City if he were still at United it's still in his nature to want to move somewhere new every couple of years.

On Berbatov's attitude it's quite surprising the way he acted at Spurs to get his move to United given he's never been anything other than the model pro for us. He's never once spoken negatively about the lack of playing time he's receiving. One of the reasons why I feel bad for him tbh.

Shamikebab · 15 Mar 2012 at 15:09

I think it would be hard to say Berbatov has a bad attitude considering how we've treated him this season. I can't think of anyone else who would have been so professional in the circumstances.