Lukaku must keep it simple to end drought: Berba

The Belgian will line up against his old club Everton in the Premier League on Sunday, having not found the back of the net since United’s 2-1 win over Watford in mid-September. Despite his lack of goals, he has received backing from his manager Jose Mourinho and also from Berbatov, who spent four years at Old Trafford from 2008, scoring 56 goals.

“I know he’s not scored for eight games, but I don’t think the criticism of Lukaku is fair. As Mourinho said, he’s working very hard for the team, but this might actually be working against the striker,” said the Bulgarian. “He wants to impress so badly that he is doing too much, and not doing the simple things like getting into the box. He is probably over complicating things; you don’t want to see him popping up at left back as he did on Tuesday.”

Berbatov was referring to United’s 0-1 defeat by Juventus in the Champions League, in which Lukaku was often left isolated up front. Suggestions that his United form is suffering because of the system employed have some basis in the statistics. Ahead of Everton’s visit to Old Trafford, Berbatov was confident that United had the tools to bounce back. “It wasn’t a good performance from United (against Juventus), it needs to improve in all areas. But it has the manager and the players and it will be putting pressure on itself to get it right,” he said.