Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

It's "bye bye" to Manchester for Dimitar Berbatov, then. Never has there been a player I can remember at United who polarised opinion to such a level between thinking he was a genius or complete shite.

Even Juan Veron, whose career with us was patchy at best, was generally regarded as a brilliant player who just couldn't hack it in English football. Poor Dimi never had that excuse - after all, he'd done well for Tottenham Hotspur before his £30 million transfer four years ago. Since then, he won two championships and was top scorer in 2010/11 and yet last year, he was a stranger to the first team with only a short spell around Christmas (six goals in three games) to take from it. He had a nightmare up at Newcastle, but then so did everybody - yet the Berb was the only one to get the axe.

Perhaps he should have left last summer. Despite the Golden Boot, his being left out of the entire squad for the Champions League final against Barcelona was nothing short of humiliation - especially when you consider even Michael Owen got a space on the bench ahead of him. However, he kept his silence throughout it all and it's only now, since his transfer to Fulham last week, that he's voiced his disappointment and a feeling that he's lost some respect for his manager.

Fair enough, says I. But then I would, as I was always a fan. He was a player who could do things that made you gasp, had sublime skill and that cool thing of being able to beat a man despite having no pace whatsoever. He's probably the type I'd like to have been, if I had been good enough to play.

The real puzzler for me, that said, is why we bought him in the first place. At the time, we were English and European champions down to in large part the front three of Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo - a trio whose speed and ability to switch positions had caused all manner of problems for the best around.

My only guess would be Ferguson knew Ronaldo wanted away to Madrid and also that there would be problems with Tevez and his agent. Perhaps the whole system was set to change. What we do know is that in the season after those two stars left, Berb made two fatal misses against Blackburn and Manchester City that many believe (with some cause) cost us the league and FA Cup.

Which will explain why in the future, a man who scored a hat-trick past Liverpool won't go down in legend. I always wanted him to succeed. People said he only scored against the teams we beat easily, like five against Blackburn, hat-tricks against Wigan and Birmingham. Perhaps so, but given we lost the league on goal difference last season, maybe, just maybe, he could have found a few more goals against West Brom, QPR, Norwich...?

It wasn't to be for him here, though I'll always count myself lucky to have been in the crowd when he pulled off an incredible bit of skill against West Ham to set up a Ronaldo goal soon after joining. Good luck at Fulham, Dimi, and know that now you're gone, we're back to being a squad of right ugly bastards again.