Why Berbatov shouldn't be crowned the new King yet

DIMITAR Berbatov will not be the next Eric Cantona. To suggest it I believe diminishes Cantona's legacy as someone who was a class apart, a one-off, a great.
I sincerely hope Berbatov enjoys the same amount of success as Eric and indeed surpasses his medal haul in his five years at Old Trafford.
But another Eric there will never be. Never again will a player be with such troubled history be taken from their nearest rivals and adopted as one of their own. Never will a player inspire so much by doing so little during a game. Never will a player carry such an aura that to see him in the flesh would freeze the most hardened United supporters.
Cantona was loved at Old Trafford because he was a player that where many others shrunk when they walked out at the Theatre of Dreams, Eric grew. He grew in a way that made everyone in the crowd skip the first few United players who walked out ahead of him and instinctively look for Eric. There he'd be at the back, collar up, chest puffed out, the man had arrived.
Berbatov is an excellent player, but I doubt he'll ever stir up the frenzy Eric did. Paul Ince has already said the comparison is unjust, I'm sure the likes of Mark Hughes and Steve Bruce will say the same. The players that played alongside him know not only the talent he had, but the presence he possessed.
Everyone seems to have a memory or a story about Eric from trying to pay for chewing gum with a credit card to turning up for formal functions in a leather jacket. It was instances such as these that made him such a hero. The rebel, the artist, call him what you will; to many supporters he was one of them.
That's why expecting Berbatov to play in a similar way is laughable. Eric was signed for a bargain, he never wore gloves and in his words in the moment before he dies "will have this club in my heart".
Berbatov is at the point of his career where he is waiting to walk out onto the big stage, the question now is whether he shrinks under the weight of the expectation, or rises to it and achieve what the great man couldn't- European glory.
If Berbatov is looking for ways to answer his critics he could read this from an interview in the current edition of FourFourTwo:
The major criticism of you as a player at Man United was that you didn't perform as well or score goals in big European games. Why do you think that was? Was it just that the Premier League was easier?
Eric: "I scored goals in the European Cup. Like I scored goals for France. I played 45 times for France and scored 20 goals. I scored one goal in every two games in Europe. That's not bad. (smiles) When you are a striker you can prove yourself with numbers. You can play ten games, score five goals and assist five goals. You can give an answer very quickly if the press are against you by scoring goals. When you are a midfielder or defender you can't do that. If they don't want to see that you are a good player they won't see it. That's why I was a striker."