At the end of a week in which Dimitar Berbatov was criticised
heavily for his penalty miss in the FA Cup semi-final, the
Bulgarian tormented his former club and proved just why United
shelled out so much money to secure his signature last summer.
Against Tottenham Hotspur, the 28-year-old dazzled in United’s
5-2 win, with Sir Alex describing his performance as
“fantastic”.
“I don’t think he gave the ball away once, throughout the entire
game,” the boss told MUTV. “I thought he was
our best player in the first half and then in the second he
produced some wonderful moments.
“He produces moments that make you sit back and say: ‘that’s
world class’. The pass he gave Ronaldo in the second half was
unbelievable.”
Berbatov didn’t feature in United’s 2-0 win against Portsmouth
in midweek, three days after his somewhat casual penalty had been
saved at Wembley. Many media outlets lambasted the striker for the
miss, while radio phone-ins were awash with suggestion that the
Bulgarian was overpriced.
“Look, he missed a penalty kick. Many players have done that,”
reasoned Sir Alex. “Rio missed one last weekend as well and it’s
all forgotten about.
“But because we paid so much money for Berbatov people are on
his back. I know it was a bad penalty kick, I’m not making excuses
for it. But we have to move on. It’s only a missed penalty.
“He produced some fantastic football last week but didn’t get
the credit because of the penalty miss.”