Stuck With Berbatov? Poor Things...

Stuck With Berbatov? Poor Things...

It's tempting to see Wayne Rooney's injury as the pivotal moment in Manchester United's season - after all, how could they possibly hope to beat Chelsea and Bayern Munich without the media-appointed Best Player In The World? What hope do they have of glory when the only player available to take his place is the fifth-best striker in English football?

Give most managers the choice of lone striker from the whole pool of Premier League strikers for a series of massive games and I'll wager that only Rooney, Fernando Torres, Didier Drogba and possibly Carlos Tevez would be taken in the draft ahead of Berbatov. Darren Bent and Jermain Defoe would be discarded as way out of their depth and Emmanuel Adebayor and Nicolas Anelka are woefully out of form.

Contrast that with Berbatov, a player who has scored five goals in his last six league starts and a very credible 12 goals in his 19 starts all season. He's been far more prolific than current media favourites Bobby Zamora and John Carew, while his first touch puts everyone barring Lionel Messi but including Rooney to shame. And yet we're supposed to believe United's chances are massively deteriorated by his presence?

It suits the English media to paint Rooney as the best player in the world, while the suspiciously foreign-looking and languid Berbatov is an easy target with his massive price tag and his surly face. Fans are happy to join in with the booing of the pantomime villain, whose only real crime is to not sweat quite as much as we think he should while being really very good at football.

They say he doesn't deliver in big games, while ignoring the fact that Sir Alex Ferguson never actually picks him for those big games because his preferred 4-2-3-1 formation leaves no room for two strikers. This season he has played less than 90 minutes in total in five games against Big Four sides, succinctly explaining why he never seems to deliver in those big games.

It would be foolish to suggest that anyone barring Berbatov would pick Berbatov over Rooney for games against Chelsea and Bayern, but United have a back-up far better than any other Premier League side. Forget the £30m price tag - it won't be the price tag holding up the ball, bringing the midfield into play, somehow easing itself out of tight spaces and winning balls in the air, it will be a footballer who just happens to be very good indeed.

Wolves and Bolton are hardly the hardiest of opposition but they were both beaten by United teams featuring Berbatov as a lone striker, while the Bulgarian was impressive against Inter last season in a rare outing without Rooney in a very combative game that ended 0-0. He may not offer quite the same goal threat as Rooney, but you can bet your bottom dollar he will lose the ball with less frequency.

If I were a United fan, I would not be worrying about going into Saturday's match against Chelsea having been forced into fielding one of the best footballers in Europe as the lone striker. I'd be too busy worrying about the composition of a midfield that looked almost as lost against Munich as Barcelona.