Posts Tagged ‘Dimitar Berbatov’

Wolfsburg v Man Utd preview

United duo out until New Year

Chelsea v Manchester United

The emphasis on Rio Ferdinand’s troubled form faded last Tuesday when United looked even more vulnerable without him during the 3-3 draw with CSKA Moscow. It seems that he will be missing again with back trouble just when solidity at the heart of the defence will be critical. The visitors must find others to check Didier Drogba, who has verged on the uncontainable for Chelsea this season, scoring nine goals in his last nine appearances in all competitions. Kevin McCarra

Venue Stamford Bridge

Tickets Sold out

Last season Chelsea 1 Manchester United 1

Referee M Atkinson

This season’s matches 8 Y34, R0, 4.25 cards per game

sportingbet odds Chelsea evs Man Utd 12-5 Draw 9-4

Chelsea

Subs from Hilário, Turnbull, J Cole, Sturridge, Hutchinson, Zhirkov, Bruma, Borini, Kalou, Matic, Ferreira, Belletti, Alex, Mikel

Doubtful Mikel (ankle), Zhirkov (knee)

Injured Bosingwa (knee, 21 Nov)

Suspended None

Form guide WWLWLW

Disciplinary record Y11 R1

Leading scorer Drogba 9

Manchester United

Subs from Foster, Kuszczak, Anderson, Berbatov, Owen, Welbeck, Brown, Fabio, Gibson, Scholes, Macheda, Rafael, Obertan

Doubtful Berbatov (knee), Fletcher (ankle), Giggs (thigh), Vidic (calf), Welbeck (knee)

Injured Ferdinand (back, 21 Nov), Park (knee, 21 Nov), Hargreaves (knee, Dec)

Suspended Neville (second of three)

Form guide WLWDWW

Disciplinary record Y17 R2

Leading scorer Rooney 7

Match pointers

• Manchester United average 1.29 points per game in the Premier League against Chelsea, fewer than against any other side

• Chelsea have not been beaten at home by United in the Premier League since losing 3-0 in April 2002

• Five of Dimitar Berbatov’s last six league goals have come between the 51st and 62nd minute

• Chelsea are one defeat away from 150 in the Premier League era

• Sir Alex Ferguson has lost three of his four meetings with Carlo Ancelotti as a manager

Man Utd 2-0 Blackburn

Perhaps it’s the swine flu, but Blackburn continue to make a pig’s ear of defending, and Manchester United were able to win with something to spare and without ever playing as well as they can. Two high-class goals, from Dimitar Berbatov and Wayne Rooney, were gems amid more dross than Old Trafford is prepared to tolerate, and the crowd were voicing their disapproval by the time the stalemate was broken, 10 minutes into the second half.

Berbatov’s stunning goal out of nothing came with a rider. The Bulgarian had spurned straightforward chances before he scored, and the home crowd were starting to get on the back of the £30m man, tempted to join in the visitors’ cries of “What a waste of money”, until his fourth of the season went in.

Earlier results had given United little cause for satisfaction. Despite last week’s defeat at Anfield, they do not view Liverpool as genuine title rivals, so the old enemy’s latest setback, at Fulham, was regarded as of lesser consequence than the emphatic victories by Chelsea, who stay top, and Arsenal, who briefly moved into second place.

Blackburn mustered only one attack of consequence, and that was delayed until the 87th minute, but it left Sam Allardyce with genuine cause for complaint. When Benni McCarthy’s shot came back off an upright, Nikola Kalinic tucked away the rebound, only to be penalised for offside, which he wasn’t. Allardyce said: “I’m not suggesting we’d have gone on to make it 2-2, but it’s wrong that we had that opportunity denied us. It should have been a goal, and with four minutes to go, who knows? People will say it’s Sam moaning again, but I like to moan when I’m right.”

United were without both their regular centre-backs, but it mattered little in the context of the match, and while Nemanja Vidic will always be missed, Rio Ferdinand’s form has been of mounting concern – former England manager Graham Taylor claimed before the match that Ferdinand had “lost his legs” – and the calf injury which put him out was not the blow it would once have been. Wes Brown and Johnny Evans were more than capable deputies.

Blackburn’s problems go far deeper and are easy to identify. They are shipping goals at an alarming rate – 15 in their past four matches – and are not scoring enough. David Dunn leads the way with four. Nobody else has contributed more than one. It is no great surprise that they are missing Stephen Warnock, Roque Santa Cruz and Matt Derbyshire, sold for £25m to keep the bank manager happy.

Michael Carrick, with his metronomic passing, did his considerable best to prompt United into incisive action, but half an hour elapsed before they created a decent chance, Valencia crossing accurately from the right for Berbatov to get in a firm, bouncing header which had Robinson fully extended in tipping over the bar. It was a chance missed.

Berbatov again tested Robinson with a resounding shot from the edge of the D, which the Rovers keeper was happy to turn round his left upright, and when the Bulgarian did manage to get the ball in the net, after 39 minutes, the celebrations were curtailed by an offside flag. A fourth opportunity presented itself just before the interval, but Berbatov was horribly profligate, shooting high and wide.

Relief for United came from the most unexpected source, given what had gone before. The danger appeared to be minimal when Evra’s mis-hit shot flew towards Berbatov who, from near the penalty spot, turned in a blur and volleyed the ball low into Robinson’s right corner. One always seemed likely to be enough, but Rooney added an expertly taken second from Anderson’s pass.

Even Allardyce did not dispute the outcome, but United will need to play a lot better than this to dislodge Chelsea from the top of the table when they meet at Stamford Bridge next Sunday.

The Fans’ Player Ratings And Verdicts

Shaun O’Donnell, Observer reader

You expect a couple of frights on Halloween, but the first half was a real horror show. If you’d brought a kid for the first time, he or she would have wanted to go home at half-time. Blackburn came to defend, but we were very poor in the first half. Second half was better, but we still can’t provide service to the front men. Nani was awful – he could be gone by the end of the season. When you have to grind out a result at home against Blackburn, it’s not good. I don’t think Ferguson knows his best midfield, but Hargreaves will move us up a gear.

The fan’s player ratings Van der Sar 6; O’Shea 6, Brown 6, Evans 6, Evra 7; Valencia 6, Carrick 6, Anderson 6, Nani 5 (Obertan 63 6); Rooney 6, Berbatov 6 (Owen 79 6) Subs not used Scholes, Da Silva, Fletcher, Kuszczak, De Laet

Paul McGarry, Observer reader

If you look in the dictionary for routine victory you’d find a report of this game. We defended OK, but we showed virtually no ambition – not even when we conceded. It’s difficult to draw anything from the game other than there’s a huge gap between the top few teams and everybody else. The bigger picture for Rovers is whether we have got a weak team or is it that we’re not playing with any ambition? We look nowhere near any of the top teams, but I think we’ll be OK because there are a few teams who are worse than us.

The fan’s player ratings Robinson 5; Chimbonda 5, Samba 5, Nelsen 6, Givet 6; Emerton 5, Nzonzi 6, Andrews 5 (Pedersen 57 5); Diouf 5; Dunn 5 (McCarthy 83 n/a); Di Santo 6 (Kalinic 76 6) Subs not used Grella, Hollett, Salgado, Brown

If you want to take part in the Fans’ Verdict, email fans.premier@observer.co.uk

Stoke City 0-2 Manchester United

Don’t believe the hype. While Manchester United may be back on top of the Premier League as a result of their fifth successive win coupled with Wigan’s unlikely toppling of Chelsea, the extent to which the champions are relying on Ryan Giggs is in danger of becoming embarrassing.

For the second weekend in a row United were indebted to their veteran winger for securing the points, this time by coming on as a second-half substitute and showing his team-mates the way to goal. Before the 35-year-old’s introduction United seemed to have no idea how to break down Stoke’s massed defence. The visitors looked as if they could play all day without scoring – as indeed did Stoke, though that is nothing new – until Giggs arrived and quickly helped set up goals for Dimitar Berbatov and John O’Shea to make winning look easy again.

“Ryan made the goals, I felt his intelligence would bother them on that side of the pitch,” said Sir Alex Ferguson, in what may or may not have been a veiled criticism of 56 empty-headed minutes from Nani. “We showed fantastic composure in possession, because this isn’t an easy place to come, but we didn’t create enough before the goal came. Ryan is important, his movement was marvellous for the first goal.”

United must have known what to expect when they saw the Stoke teamsheet, with Tuncay and James Beattie on the bench and only Dave Kitson as a notional front man. Sure enough, the home side spent the first half getting nine or 10 men behind the ball, even when that meant backing off Paul Scholes and allowing the United schemer all the space he could have wished for in midfield.

It ought to have been a recipe for trouble, yet United failed to use their wealth of possession creatively or even advantageously. With Nani and Antonio Valencia neither speedy nor incisive on the flanks, and Wayne Rooney and Berbatov struggling to reach any sort of understanding through the middle, nothing ever came of the long balls and short passes Scholes sprayed around. It was perhaps significant that United’s best chance of the first half came from a Stoke error, when Ryan Shawcross let Valencia clean through. Finishing has never been the former Wigan player’s strong point and though he drew the goalkeeper he managed to miss the target.

Nani brought a good save from Thomas Sorensen on the stroke of the interval, though the same player had earlier incurred Rooney’s wrath by shooting wastefully into the Boothen End when a return pass to the unmarked striker looked a better option. Rooney himself was having an off day, and was guilty of similar selfishness later on.

If it sounds as if the first half was all United, that was exactly the case. Stoke stayed mostly behind the half way line. The supposedly nervous Ben Foster never had a shot to save before the break, and was far from busy afterwards. “We were flat,” Tony Pulis admitted. “We didn’t give it a right good go. I don’t blame the players, they are only human, but you need to be at your absolute maximum to compete with top-four teams and we were never able to wrestle control from them.”

The United support had been chanting Giggs’s name long before Ferguson sent him on in the 56th minute. The visitors were ahead six minutes later, after Dean Whitehead allowed Darren Fletcher to run through and pick up Giggs cutting in from the left, for a short, squared pass for Berbatov a tap in from a couple of yards out. Simple but effective, and apparently beyond Nani or Valencia.

Stoke sent on Beattie and Tuncay once they had to chase the game, only to be undone by Giggs’s accurate delivery from a 77th-minute free-kick, finding O’Shea’s head for the goal that sealed the points.

Presented with an opportunity to score from a Scholes pass just before the end, Giggs lifted a shot over the bar in a manner that had the travelling support inquiring what on earth he was playing at. The United fans were in relaxed mood by, demanding to know what had happened to Stoke’s famous atmosphere and wittily suggesting it was just like watching Port Vale. They weren’t singing those songs in the first hour, though. Before Giggs brought a touch of calmness and class to the proceedings, with due respect to the Valiants, it was a little too much like Port Vale for comfort.