Who Should Start Alongside Wayne Rooney Next Season?

(Photo by Stanley Chou/Getty Images)

Last season, Wayne Rooney had two strikers that started alongside him in Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov.

As the season unfolded, more people wanted Tevez to start, but Tevez left for Manchester City, and teammate Cristiano Ronaldo left for Real Madrid, which now has put Rooney into a position in which he needs to deliver next season.

Now with the new season starting, United have held onto Berbatov, and brought in Michael Owen from Newcastle on a free transfer to become a replacement for Tevez.

Now the question is, who should start alongside Wayne Rooney next season: Dimitar Berbatov or Michael Owen?

Dimitar Berbatov

At the end of last summer's transfer window, manager Sir Alex Ferguson completed his most expensive transfer ever, as he got Dimitar Berbatov from Tottenham Hotspur for £30.75 million.

After joining Manchester United, Berbatov took over the starting striker position that Carlos Tevez had held the previous year, and started to score important goals such as the game winner in stoppage time over Bolton Wanderers that gave United their first ever lead in the league standings.

However, all of what Berbatov did quickly became forgotten as he took a lazy penalty during the penalty shootout at Wembley, during the FA Cup semifinal against Everton, which was stopped by former United keeper Tim Howard. United went on to lose the shootout and were eliminated from the FA Cup.

After losing Tevez and Ronaldo in this summers transfer window, Berbatov has claimed that he will score more goals during this season, and he will play even better than he did last season.

During this summer's preseason tour of Asia, Berbatov has scored one time already, and has been playing better than he did during last season, but it still is too soon to know how Berbatov will play during this upcoming season.

Michael Owen

After joining Newcastle from Real Madrid in 2005, Michael Owen was supposed to help make Newcastle once again a legitimate contender in the English Premier League.

However, Owen's time with the Toon was injury filled, as he sustained major injuries in all four seasons that he spent there, including missing the entire 2006-2007 season with a torn ACL, he received in the 2006 World Cup.

In the 2008-2009 season, which was Owen's final year at Newcastle, Newcastle got relegated and Owen started to look for work elsewhere, until Ferguson surprisingly lured Owen to Old Trafford to play for the Red Devils.

After the transfer was completed, Owen was given the famed No. 7 jersey with United, and responded with scoring two game winning goals against Malaysia XI, during this summer's preseason Asia tour.

Still, the major question for Manchester United remains, who will be the striker that plays alongside Wayne Rooney next season? Still no one knows who it could be.

Could it be Berbatov, who can score the clutch goals and win games for United, or will it be Owen, who is trying to reclaim his best days with United, and is trying to get onto the English squad for the 2010 World Cup?

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