It's funny. At the moment, we live in an age whereby it's players like Berbatov the most successful clubs are building their starting line ups around. Players that have fantastic ball control, vision, ball retention and all round technique. It is such a crazy situation whereby we cannot afford Berbatov an important first team place, or even just more minutes on the pitch in general.
That's not a criticism of Fergie, and that's not to say that Berbatov is perfect either, but it just seems so bizarre that a player of Berbatov's style and attributes hasn't completely fit in here. He should've been a midfielder, and a really good one at that.
Edit:
Consider this, for example:
---------------------De Gea--------------------
Rafael---------Ferdinand-----Vidic-----------Evra
------------------Carrick------Scholes-----------
----------------------Berbatov------------------
Nani----------------Rooney--------------Kagawa
At this point, it's become very clear that Berbatov is not a 30 a season goalscorer, and that sometimes his play slows our build up in the final third. By the same token, it's also become apparent that Rooney perhaps does not offer as much as other players do in other aspect behind the forward, and is perhaps more suited to the foward role based on last year. Playing Berbatov behind Rooney would bring Berbatov deeper, whereby his composed style of play might be more appropriate, and it would also allow Rooney to focus predominantly on scoring.
Whether people deem this defensively sound enough is another thing, and I'm sure someone will disagree with Kagawa's position (or Valencia/Welbeck's omission), but I can't help thinking there should've been a role here for Berbatov as a more advanced midfielder, particularly if there was another similar player to Carrick in that midfield.