Adam Dennehey WAFU manager
This weekend see’s Manchester United play Bolton away in the Premier League and it shall be interesting to see who Sir Alex partners up top to partner Wayne Rooney.
He realistically has two options to choose from and it’s a credit really to Danny Welbeck’s outstanding form that Ferguson is choosing who to replace the tall forward with, rather than dropping one or the other to the bench automatically.
Javier Hernandez was arguably the star of our season last year. Despite starring for Mexico in the World Cup and having an impressive pre-season, not much was expected of him and many fans thought that he would be behind Kiko Macheda in the pecking-order behind Dimitar Berbatov and Rooney last season.
Of course Chicharito proved everyone wrong and from his first competitive game in the Community Shield against Chelsea showed flashes of real genuine quality that we would witness in abundance throughout last season which saw him score 20 goals only 1 behind Berba.
Berba of course brings a different approach to Chicharito. Berba’s more of a hold-up guy who brings others into play whereas our little Mexican is more of a fox-in-the-box type of forward who finishes off moves rather than creating them.
Last season I am sure if you were to ask Berba whether his year went as well as it did, I would be willing to bet money that despite being our leading scorer last year, he would not have been happy with how the year ended. Forget about the fact that he wasn’t involved in the Champions League final squad against Barcelona, after scoring so many goals early in the season, he would have expected to have scored more than 2 goals after February.
That being said it was hard for Sir Alex to keep Chicharito out given how his performances rapidly improved as the season went on and it was clear to see that his partnership with Rooney was the one to keep faith with. Aside from getting results it was also bringing out the best in our no.10 which obviously was a major boost for the squad.
So looking forward to our clash with Bolton, who would you pick. Chicharito or Berba?
Bolton have never been an easy team to beat at the Reebok and have always made life tough for the top teams who have always found it hard to deal with their physical presence at both ends of the pitch.
Gary Cahill is certainly someone who will be getting alot of attention this weekend. Given his performances for England this week, the extra-attention is rightly deserved and he will be Bolton’s most important defender who we will need to exploit on Saturday.
I can see Sir Alex starting Chicharito as I feel that he will want to test Bolton out more at the back and there’s no doubt our no.14 can do that with his pace and movement very hard to keep hold off. It’s not that I wouldn’t want to start Berba this weekend, but despite him probably being better equipped to hold up the ball, there is a suspicion that if it’s not going right for our Bulgarian that his play can be become too predictable and this will play right into Cahill and his fellow defenders’ hands.
Berba though I would still expect to make his second league appearance of the season this weekend regardless of whether he starts or not. If we are not winning the game, Sir Alex will bring him on and if we are then he can afford to take one of Chicharito/Rooney off to save their legs for the Benfica game in midweek.
It shall be very intriguing to see who gets the nod this weekend as if they do well alongside Rooney and score a goal, then they probably will retain their place for the game in Lisbon. As for the Chelsea game afterwards at Old Trafford, you get the sense that John Terry and co would not want to come up against Chicharito but that’s just my opinion.
By Adam Dennehey @ADennehey87
