Do not adjust your set when you watch the game this week. It’s not that the picture has frozen or that the slow motion switch was pressed when you say on the remote- it’s Dimitar Berbatov.

Mr Slow returns to Old Trafford to demonstrate his languid class as part of a rebuilt Fulham team that has taken a huge step backwards since they became a feeder club for Spurs.

Last weekend we saw Moussa Dembele and Clint Dempsey overpower United in the second half exposing David ‘Count Dracula’ De Gea’s fear of crosses to such an extent that he gifted a goal for the 4th time in the last few matches with a punch that could best be described as girly (sorry girls I really don’t mean to insult your punching power).

The Spurs recruits left Harrods with less valuable merchandise such that the Christmas shopping period showed what a weak setup was left behind.

We should put Al Fayed’s lumbering under achievers to the sword with what is likely to be a second XI for United.

The FA Cup will likely see a team containing Anders Lindegaard, Alexander Buttner, Chris Smalling, Jonny Evans, Nani, Anderson, Phil Jones, Javier Hernandez, Antonio Valencia, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs in some formation we have never seen before.

Despite this we should brush aside the Cottagers with some ease, while our enigmatic record buy strolls around as though he owns the place, waving his arms at misplaced passes and bemoaning every call from the officials.

In this world of beautiful symmetry we will see the marauding, balding, pencil nosed Bulgarian show us glimpses of the Teddy Sheringham copy we thought we had bought from Spurs mixed in with the Juan Sebastian Veron work rate we know so well.

We may never know how Robbie Keane and Berbatov were so effective as neither works alone but Spurs did good business selling him to us and we did well to offload him as a Dempsey replacement.

Berbatov did score goals for us, often in 2’s or 3’s against weak teams but when it really mattered sadly, too often, he went missing.

Frankly Dimitar was a waste of money, and will forever rank alongside the expensive flops that Sir Alex Ferguson brought to Old Trafford. Think Veron, Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba, Laurent ‘Larry White’ Blanc, Michael Owen and perhaps De Gea, maybe Shinji Kagawa.

So if the picture freezes do not adjust your set, just make a cup of tea and by the time you sit back down I’m sure he will have moved 5 yards, but without breaking sweat or making a tackle. Oh Dimitar, if only you had some work rate – what might have been!

By Steve Burrows CBE @ifollowsteve