Aha, our friends at the Guardian do us proud again. Here is another blog which emphasises the contribution of Berba while making the point that his skills are not being properly utilised at the moment. We know the reason for this (Bryan's absence) but is does re-inforce the need/benefit of playing him up top. http://www.eplindex.com/24036/fulham-underutilise-dimitar-berbatov-striker-comparison.html An just to round things off, here is an 'action map' of his play against Southampton which demonstrates the effort he put in, but how seldom he got into scoring positions - please log in to view this image
Thanks, Fulhaman and Cottager. That really confirms what we already knew, doesn't it? Berbatov should play further forward, and he does better when Bryan Ruiz is behind him. For that matter, our much-maligned central midfielders do much better with that pair ahead of them, despite their respective reputations for not putting a shift in.
I think it's their style of football that makes them look lazy. Was thinking that Berbatov is slightly lazy by staying behind the defenders quite a bit but in many cases that is coz we are too slow to pass forward or our midfield already lost the ball by the time he did his run!!
