SOCCER:DIMITAR BERBATOV seldom looks like a man in a hurry, but he has set the sort of pace that will take Manchester United five points clear in the Premier League if they beat Blackpool tonight. The Bulgarian has scored 17 times this season. More importantly still, he has done so at a time when Wayne Rooney has one goal in open play for the club.

By keeping the side buoyant, Berbatov has ensured the dry spell for his team-mate is more curiosity than crisis. Rooney, so deeply involved in the 5-0 defeat of Birmingham City at the weekend, might just have rediscovered his true self before coming under great pressure. The purchase of Berbatov from Tottenham Hotspur for €36 million in 2008 looks as if it is making a little more sense.

His imagination and beautiful touch are assets any manager would covet, yet he breaches the sort of policy that now applies at Old Trafford. There is little, if any, money to be recouped on a player who had turned 28 before the end of his first season with United. It is odd now to think, too, Alex Ferguson was asked last summer if he would off-load Berbatov. “No, no definitely not,” said the manager. “He’s a fantastic player.”

And so he is, in many respects. There are too few performers in an era of hyper-energy who can still be called elegant, but the idea Berbatov could be sold was not eccentric. He scored a moderate 26 goals over his first two seasons.

In the present campaign he has been on a spree, but there are some curious aspects to it. Any United forward would expect to do better at Old Trafford, but Berbatov is heavily dependant on home advantage. Fifteen of the 17 goals have come there, eight of them in the matches against Blackburn Rovers and Birmingham.

He was not simply gorging himself since one of his three hat-tricks overcame Liverpool, who had levelled from 2-0 down. Berbatov is entitled to feel that he also has the attributes of a classic number 10 who can prise open any defence. In at least one respect, however, the reliance on Berbatov is risky.

Common sense would suggest the Champions League is his natural habitat since he is, after all, a smooth and cerebral figure, but the facts firmly oppose that view.

Berbatov has been unable to score in that competition since availing himself of a couple of goals during a 3-0 away victory over Aalborg in September 2008. It would be understandable if he were named among the substitutes when United meet Marseille at the Stade Velodrome on February 23rd.

In the club’s last outing in the knock-out phase of the Champions League, Berbatov did not start in either leg of the quarter-final with Bayern Munich.

Berbatov has, however, covered well indeed for both Rooney absences and the tentativeness that has beset the striker when he is on the pitch, but that will not suffice for much longer. If United are to touch the higher level that will be essential in the Champions League, they must see Rooney become his old intuitive self again in the next month or two.