Analysis : Dimitar Berbatov | Whats wrong and what changed ?

I’m one of the fans of Manchester United, who argued that Berbatov is not flop at Old Trafford. I defended him every time some made a comment on this either it is about his laziness or lack of goals etc.. Many United fans nick named him Berbaflop but the same people are now eating their own words after seeing him this season.

Was something changed or is he changed ? No… he wasn’t changed but the difference is the arrogance is back in Berbatov. 🙂 . this statement looks funny but its true. In the last 2 seasons we didn’t saw the arrogance of berbatov much.  He is the best when he drops deep, collects the ball and then plays it to the front player or target man. when i wrote arrogance, its the way he passes the ball. He doesn’t care about his pass but it will be accurate enough to find the right person with good timing.  You saw the in the last match when he took his shirt off after scoring that brilliant airborne volly.

With Tottenham

Remember his days at Spurs. He and Keane formed a wonderful partnership and he is the focal point of the spurs attack. Here is his passes from one the matches he played well for Spurs. You can see here that he likes to drop deep and involve in buildup play.

First season at United

Now at United, in his first season he has Ronaldo and Rooney. Ronaldo used to be the target for United attack and rooney played on the left. This left Berbatov with limited chances to score. Here is Berbatov’s average positions from his 1st season at Old Trafford.

He may have just nine league goals to his name, but he has 10assists also. He even finished fourth in the overall Actim index with 586 points, with his 652 passes the eighth most in the league.

Second season at United

Now into the second season he played along side Rooney when we lineup 4-4-2 but later we switched to 4-3-3 with Rooney alone upfront. Here is the Berbatov’s position diagram.

Generally, the second striker will not play a huge amount of passes, but will look to provide key passes that will lead directly to goals. But Berbatov has more passes and involved more in the build up play. The role that SAF gave him is unique. His game is to keep position in tight situations up on the pitch and to keep the attacking play and importantly to provide the pressure on the opposition team.

Now, in this season he played well and did what exactly he has been assigned. He played in support of Rooney as a second striker. it is common that the second striker generally gets less number of passes. but he has huge contribution to the team. Look at these stats below.

He was a creative, deep-lying, playmaker sort of striker. we need to see him as a striker who could do things besides scoring goals better. So he was always going to be unsuited to being a lone striker.

Sadly when he was alone upfront, the team didn’t delivered him what they does for Rooney and he was also suddenly into new shoes which he never tried before.

United played [attacked] more on the wings last season.

If you see the berbatov’s passing, he mostly plays through the middle and short passes and also will pass very few to the wingers. This means when berbatov plays as lone striker, we have less no of chances coming from the wings unlike when we have rooney, who prefers sending the pass to wingers and wait for cross.

Otherwise, the midfield has to feed the ball to wingers, at which i think we failed towards end of last season.

Third season at United

A lot has been talked before the season starts. There is a talk of his transfer, Sir Alex finally loosing faith in him etc.. But before the pre-season SAF made it clear the he is staying and no question of offloading him. In the pre-season games he showed good form and scored some goals. now United is playing 4-4-2 with Berbatov behind Rooney. Things started working…. here is his passing map from guardian chalkboards

Look at that passing… he was everywhere on the pitch except defense. He played more infront of Scholes and Fletcher. Did you observed it? He is passing the ball more to wingers especially Nani who is on the right side. He is excellent so far in the last 4matches. He is making a good partnership with Rooney this season and we observed that he is well suited for Hernandez. To Berbatov’s game, an out and out striker in 4-4-2 is well suited.

The one word that almost most of hte united fans are behind in this summer is ‘play maker’. You have Paul Scholes in your team and with this new improvements of Berbatov, you have second play maker. If you don’t think so look at what happens when we substituted berbatov in the games so far this season. Also look at the passing and attack when both Scholes and Berbatov are taken off in the game against Westham. Do you agree that we took long time to understand him?

So what changed for Berbatov ?

1. Nothing 2. He is involving in build up play and linking well with Nani. 3. His teammates started to pass him the ball more. 4. Behind the rooney he is playing like connector between midfield and attack. 5. He started passing ball to wingers more 6. He is clear on his role and responsibility 7. I think we’ve found where he is more effective.

Didn’t we, finally learned what he brings to team and how to watch him?

Javier Hernandez and Chris Smalling are officially Manchester United players

Javier Hernandez [Chicharito] and Chris Smalling are officially United players from today.These two are agreed deals to join the club during the last season, and their contracts are now officially effective.

 

Chicharito has told ‘My expectations are to do the best I can personally, to work, to learn, and to win many trophies’.  He will meet his new team-mates for the first time during July’s trip to the USA, Canada and Mexico.

 

 

 

Smalling, will link up with his new team-mates at Carrington next week. Sir Alex described Smalling as “an extremely talented young defender who we’ve been monitoring for some months”. “He’s very quick and reads the game well. He will be a great asset to the club, playing alongside some of the best defenders around and we’re delighted to have secured his signature.”

Get to Know, Javier Hernandez – El Chicharito

Do we need an introduction to him? surely not an Manchester United fan :-). just for others….here you go a small intro

Javier “Chicharito” Hernández Balcázar (born 1 June 1988) is a Mexican footballer who plays as a forward for C.D. Guadalajara. Hernández will become the first Mexican to join Manchester United on 1 July 2010

Some facts about him

• Hernández is the son of Javier Hernández Gutiérrez, who played for Tecos and was a member of the Mexico squad at the 1986 FIFA World Cup. 
• Hernández is also the grandson of Tomás Balcázar  who played for C.D. Guadalajara and played in the 1954 FIFA World Cup for the Mexican national side.
• Hernández is commonly known as Chicharito, meaning little pea, in reference to being the son of former footballer Javier Hernández Gutiérrez, who was nicknamed Chicharo (pea) because of his green eyes.

 

Career so far

	This season	International Career
Appearances	28	11
Goals	21	5
Assists	1	2

 

Here a video from youtube:

 

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“;” alt=””>

 

What to expect?

Manchester United already have Berbatov, Owen, Macheda, Dieof; So will he get a chance directly to play with his playstation team mates??

I think we will see him more like an impact player who gets around 20mins in a game and will start in FA Cup, Carling Cup etc..

Watching all the videos on the youtube and net, we can observe few things:

• He is link player which makes to be a good fit with Rooney
• Some of his goal scoring skills are resembling those of Berbatov :-))
• He movement in the box is very good.
• How is he rising an inch or two more than defenders in all headed goals?
• We don’t have to wonder, if Rooney try to feed the ball to him given his run in the box.

 

Leave you comments about this lad in the comments section

 

Berbatov or Berbaflop?

Is United’s record signing Berbatov really a flop and leaving Old Trafford this summer?

I don’t think he will be leaving in this summer. Berbatov has scored 12 goals in his first season with 9 assists and 14 in second season with 5 assists. We all can argue that he has failed sighting the amount we spent on him [30mi].

We have been patient for 2 seasons, then why not for another season. He is a great talent and had very capable of doing what he did at Spurs. Then where is the problem? he is lazy ? Nope, thats his style, with his natural talent he don’t have to run everywhere like Tavez did. So we call him lazy. He is not as pacy as Rooney or Nani that we should accept.

Look at how he played this season. He played the second pedal to Rooney when we are with 4-42 and then we switched to 4-5-1 until Rooney got injured. When he played behind rooney, he is very good. Remember his spurs days, he was never a target man, played a good partnership with Keane. So, when he is playing as the target man, he is new to it and never played that role before at united as well.

One thing, we cannot comment is, his passing ability and accuracy. So why not we use him upfront the diamond formation of 4-4-2? Lets convert him to a kind of Attacking mid-fielder. Isn’t the same player we missed all this season? Being in that position Berbatov can hold the position and spray the ball to the 2 target man. If you want proof of how well he settles in the position, look at the games when he stayed there and passed the ball to Valencia and Nani and how many of those crosses are converted into goals by Rooney.

Let’s hope that he stays one more season at United and SAF will play him in this position, still not satisfied then sell him in January transfer window. :-D.

Antonio Valencia played well but…

Antonio Valencia is really a good signing last season and he adopted to our playing style and conditions very well. Should appreciate him for all his efforts and contributions he made. He had good pace, nice crosses and can read the game well. Did you ever thought he was brought in as replacement for Ronaldo? I never saw him in that way.

How many times did you saw him playing on the left wing? I feel he is very comfortable playing on the right wing and almost never played on the left. We have Nani who improved a lot this season and unfortunately he was also good and prefer the right wing. So what ? Remember when we have Ronaldo, he used to switch the wings often in the game. We lost that flexibility this season. Those switches will surely make the opposition defense think in the game because the defenders will come against different type of attacking players at different times. Surely need change of opposition tactics to deal with it.

So, i feel Valencia had missed this aspect which reduced our attacking options. Hope, he will work on it and back next season.