Gary Neville describes how Dimitar Berbatov suffered alongside Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney at Manchester United

30.01.2022 - 07:07 / manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Gary Neville believes Dimitar Berbatov's impact at Manchester United fell foul to the quality of Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez during his time at Old Trafford.

The cool and composed Bulgarian scored 56 goals in 149 appearances for the Reds including the mesmerising hat-trick against arch-rivals Liverpool.

As Sir Alex Ferguson built the formidable dynasty at the Theatre of Dreams, Berbatov was added to the strikeforce in 2008 from Spurs, his former teammate feels that with the attacking depth, his role in the squad has been misconstrued.

"There was a thing about Berba [Dimitar Berbatov] that didn't quite settle, he was a Manchester United centre-forward, he was really good," he said speaking on Sky Sports.

"The problem was we had [Wayne] Rooney, [Carlos] Tevez and [Cristiano] Ronaldo, it's a bit like when you go from that [gestates high] to that [lower].

"It's like when Teddy [Sheringham] came in and [Eric] Cantona left, the initial reaction was: 'Ah, he's not as good as Eric' and he didn't have the same impact.

"It was a little bit like that for Berba because we'd been used to having Tevez, Rooney [and], Ronaldo people didn't see him quite at that level.

"But he did do a great job, he wasn't the Manchester United 'typical centre-forward' you'd see in the previous 10-15 years but he had unbelievable ability, great lad, I think it worked but because you was comparing to before what had happened before you may be thinking it didn't but it probably did work."

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