GROUP EIGHT DIMITAR BERBATOV PROFILE: Emmet Maloneon the enigmatic striker. Few doubt his talent but more doubt his industry. But he is still a danger.

IN THE wake of the FA Cup semi-final against Everton when his hopelessly-struck penalty contributed to Manchester United’s exit from the competition, Dimitar Berbatov readily accepted his share of the blame but may have stretched things slightly by claiming to be his own biggest critic.

Even he may have realised there are a few bigger ones out there when his name was subsequently booed by a section of the home support prior to a game at Old Trafford, while media speculation since the season’s end that Alex Ferguson might simply cut his losses on the Bulgarian by selling him again has highlighted the fact that the player’s detractors aren’t confined to the ranks of disgruntled fans.

Ferguson, of course, is not one to admit that a buy of his was a bad one until the ink is dry on the cheque that takes the player away again. And here in Sofia there is too much at stake ahead of tonight’s vital World Cup qualifying game against the Republic of Ireland for any sort of dispassionate analysis of the 28-year-old’s form by the locals.

Instead, national coach Stanimir Stoilov is, as you would expect, looking to talk the striker up ahead of a game in which the scale of his contribution will be a major factor.

Few doubt the extent of the striker’s talent but at United his productivity has consistently been an issue, with Ferguson’s expressions of faith starkly at odds with his team selections at the tail-end of the season as the Scot sought to wrap up another Premier League title and, even more tellingly, rack up another European success.

Berbatov wasn’t on the field when United scored any of the four goals that took them past Arsenal and into last month’s Champions League final in Rome, while his contribution after coming on against Barcelona was negligible at best.

Indeed, the fact he managed just one goal in his last 13 appearances of the club season as Ferguson appeared to lose faith in him has fuelled the speculation about his future at Old Trafford, but not dampened Stoilov’s professed faith in the five-times Bulgarian player of the year.

“He won the championship in England and qualified for the final of the Champions League so it has not been a bad season for him,” says the coach. “And he had some injuries so if he is fit next season, he will be a very good player, a very important player for Manchester United.”

Still, Stoilov is quick to caution against expecting too much of a striker who, for all the recognition he has received here, has not played his way into the collective heart of his nation in quite the way previous heroes, most notably another five-time favourite, Hristo Stoichkov, managed to do.

“The most important thing is how Bulgaria will play as a team,” insists the side’s boss. “We cannot expect Berbatov to decide every game. If we have some problems as a team, it’s not down to Berbatov to decide everything.”

Asked if there is a danger of too much pressure being heaped upon the former CSKA striker, he quickly agrees there is. “That’s my point,” he says. “We can’t expect to go to a World Cup only with Berbatov so it’s very important for me as a manager to have a team in which everybody looks to take some responsibility on the pitch and to play well.

“It’s not been fair on Berbatov over this past year in terms of the problems that he has had with very high expectations for his play and now, it’s more important how the team is going to play and not only Berbatov. Everybody.”

Overall, his contribution in a Bulgarian shirt is impossible to knock, with 41 goals in 69 games an indication of his importance to the team. In this campaign, though, he has been peripheral, missing two of the side’s five games to date through injury but playing all of the other three, against Italy at home as well as Georgia and Montenegro away, all of which were drawn without him scoring.

His playing style is, to say the least, laconic but against Italy it was hard to avoid the conclusion he looked totally uninterested. Played as a lone striker for much of that game, the Bulgarians were heavily dependent on his performance up front but time after time he stood and looked on as passes from team-mates were mopped up by the visitors and the heavily-depleted World champions took a rather comfortable point away from Sofia.

At United it has been a somewhat similar story for large chunks of the season, with his failure to produce the expected tally of goals leaving critics to dwell on how much else he contributes to a team.

Opinion, to be fair, remains somewhat divided.

The downside is obvious enough. Having averaged a goal every two games back at CSKA and consistently notched up more than one in three while playing regularly at Bayer Leverkusen and Tottenham Hotspur, he has now slipped below that figure during his first season with the English champions.

He cost United almost €35 million but ended up starting less games than John O’Shea, in no small part due to the fact the prolific partnership he was supposed to strike up with Wayne Rooney yielded just one goal – against West Brom back in October – which the Englishman scored.

Four of his 14 goals for the club came against Aalborg and Celtic in the group stages of the Champions League and the two scored against the Scots should both have been ruled out for offside. Seven months later in Rome he passed up a decent chance to get United back into the final against Barcelona after coming on as a substitute and passed most of his 24 minutes on the pitch as a bystander.

His contribution, or lack of it, is made to look even worse in the eyes of supporters by comparison with Carlos Tevez who, though he only scored a goal more over the course of the year could never be accused of looking idle.

“You know when someone has great qualities sometimes they don’t have to put much effort into things,” says Berbatov by way of explanation. “Sometimes the things I do look effortless but it’s not like that. It’s very difficult but because of my style of play I make it look easy.”

Nevertheless, he admits: “Of course I can do a lot better. When people see my name they see goals and I need to score more. My main aim (next season) is to score as many as possible and help us to win the title again.”

In his defence, he suggests, as do many of his supporters, the job he has been given at United is more deep lying than the out-and-out striking role he considers his best and yet both Ferguson and Stoilov have specifically identified his most effective position as being behind such a striker.

More critical observers tend to identity his attitude rather than any lack of adaptability as the problem. He admits it used to be, recalling that when he started his first Champions League final – for Bayer Leverkusen against Real Madrid in Glasgow in 2002 – on the bench he, “didn’t give a f***” about the occasion or, it seems, the outcome.

Seven years on, there is a lingering suspicion he hasn’t changed that much. The upshot is we will not know for sure until this evening whether the return of one of Europe’s most gifted players to the Bulgarian starting line-up is a good or a bad thing for Ireland’s chances of securing a result in Sofia.