Source: Manchester_EveningNews
It's child's play for Berbatov
Dimitar Berbatov made his sensational hat-trick look like child's play and that's exactly the way he celebrated his headline-grabbing treble against Liverpool last night. The Bulgarian hitman left Old Trafford but didn't hit Manchester city centre to salute his glory day instead he went home to play with his kids insisting he is nothing special. United's £30.75m club record buy brought his Premier League total to six in five games this season with his match-ball winning effort against the Merseysiders in a thrilling 3-2 United victory. Last season it took the 29-year-old until the penultimate day of 2009 to register half a dozen league goals.Already he is halfway towards last campaign's total tally. He is in sensational scoring mode this term with a Community Shield strike at Wembley against Chelsea the start of his seven-goal haul in all competitions. But his hat-trick against the old enemy will see him enter Old Trafford folklore. Special It feels like a magical day. It was especially magical for me because I sc ored a hat-trick and we won against our rivals, said Dimitar after his breathtaking feat. Everybody was very happy in the dressing room after the game and obviously I was happy. I am going home with a smile on my face. I am going home to play with my kids, I am nothing special. It is another day and next Sunday is another game. That's it! It was probably my best day in a United shirt but I don't want it to be my last so I will keep working on it and improve on the things I try to do. Everything was really happening for me today. I have to say a big thanks to my team-mates for supplying me with the ball. Overall I thought we deserved the win. Liverpool put in a good performance but in the end, we deserved it more than them. The pick of Berbatov's personal treble was his second that saw him execute a superb overhead kick. I never saw the ball go in the back of the net for my second goal. But when I heard the crowd scream it was easy to guess what had happened! he added. It was a good goal. For me as long as the ball hits the back of the net it doesn't matter. Whether it is an overhead kick or just a tap in a goal is a goal. Liverpool, though, threatened to wreck the highlight of Berbatov's two-year United career when they rubbed out his first two strikes. It was going through my mind that we had thrown away two-goal leads at Fulham and Everton, he said.From 2-0 up to 2-2 the manager was going to be furious after the game. But we showed we have a good spirit, a fighting spirit. We always fight to the end and we proved it again by scoring the third and the winner. Hope Let us hope in the future we won't complicate it so much. We have to keep working and improving on that. There is a long way ahead of us but hopefully in the end we will be on top. Manager Sir Alex Ferguson was delighted with his performance. I am very pleased with Dimi. His form has been excellent, he said. Someone told me it was the first hat-trick in more than 60 years, which tells you something about the achievement. You do not see many overhead kicks like that coming off. It was a fantastic strike that hit the underside of the bar. There were plenty of critics who felt Berbatov had run out of chances to make an impression at United and would be sold this summer. Yet Fergie insists he never thought of taking that option. Lots of questions were asked about him last season and he was made something of a whipping boy, to the point where he must have wondered whether he had a future at Old Trafford, said the United boss. But the man has real ability and he is a United kind of player. I concede at times he seemed to struggle but if you are satisfied about a player's credentials you must persevere and trust your judgement. You must have faith and I think we are being rewarded this season for our confidence in a player who has a touch of genius. We paid a lot of money for him and we should have understood that for whatever reason players do not always settle quickly after a big transfer, especially at a club of our stature. Certainly this is a big season for him one that could determine the rest of his career.[LNB]
