Dimitar Berbatov: A Waste of Money?

(Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

I just came across some statistics from his very first (2008/2009) season in a United shirt:

43 games - 13 goals - 10 assists

How much was Ferguson willing to land his man? 30,5 Mio. GBP. Remember that was the summer where Eto'o was available for less.

Sure, he is a technically gifted player and on top of that very elegant, too, but isn't a striker supposed to bang in the goals? One might argue that he didn't have the opportunity to score because Ronaldo was still around but some Argentine fella by the name of Tevez scored 19 in his debut season for the Reds. Not only that Ronaldo, Rooney, and Tevez played some exciting football, too.

Ever since his addition ManU really look like a different side—not as clinical as before. Sure 90 percent of the time Tevez and Rooney were running around the pitch trying to get the ball but when those two combined it just looked wonderful.

I am sure they would've become an effective duo and much more dangerous than Rooney/Berbatov even though they have a similar approach to the game.

Rooney & Berbatov...I'm not entirely convinced. Sure Berbatov has his moments but didn't Veron showed flashes of brilliance too when he was a United player?

I'm a die hard, borderline fanatic FC Barcelona supporter, so every time I read quotes/statements from the mostly English press that Barcelona has overpaid for lazy Ibrahimovic, I wonder, 30 Mio. GBP for Berbatov?!?

With Ibrahimovic we can at least agree that he is mainly responsible for Inter Milan recent domestic success. What has Berbatov done to justify his massive price tag?

In my opinion Manchester United got hustled real bad. Even from a marketing point of view his signing makes no sense whatsoever. Manchester United is sponsored by Nike, he wears Adidas. When CR was around you were seeing ads with Rooney & Ronaldo.

I've read a statement from Ferguson where he said that he didn't and still doesn't think Tevez was worth 25 Mio. GBP. Well that's odd given that Tevez has proven himself in Argentina, Brazil and England, a player with genuine claim of being world-class as opposed to Berbatov (who stated that he wants to win the Ballon D'or in the future). 

What has motivated me to write an article is the fact that Ferguson wasn't willing to pay the same sum to secure the services of Karim Benzema. He should've offloaded Berbatov during the summer. C'mon Rooney/Benzema that would've been a fearsome partnership. Benzema like Rooney has lots of room for improvement and unlike Berbatov a very high resell value.

Ferguson would be lucky to even get half of what he paid for Berbatov now.

There was once a time where Ferguson had the audacity to go for Patrick Vieira when he was a Gunner now he doesn't have the guts to gamble for a player who could become one of the world's finest.

My verdict: Berbatov is bad business.

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