Even though the Bulgarian was only on the field for the final 10 minutes of Wednesday night's encounter with Bayern Munich, he still felt the pain of United's quarter-final exit keenly.

Like a number of his team-mates he spent a restless night, running through the game in his head, going over where it all went wrong for the Red Devils.

But he knows the only way to bounce back is to maintain group solidarity.

"It is difficult," he told MUTV. "You go home and sit, you rewind the game in your head, over and over again, thinking what you could have done better.

"This is the most difficult part. It is not the first time and it won't be the last, but it is always difficult.

"You need to lift yourself up but you can only do that with the help of your team-mates. That is how you go forward."

Berbatov's lack of action has been a major talking point, with many pundits believing it marks the death knell for his United career.

Sir Alex Ferguson has played down such conclusions, insisting he still trusts his £30.75million record signing.

And Berbatov believes he could have made more of an impact.

"It is difficult to get into a game when you only have 10 minutes," he said. "But sometimes you need less than that to change it.

"In this case it did not happen. We fought until the end but it just wasn't meant to be for us.

"There is nothing we can do now. Instead of looking back, let's look forward and see what is ahead of us."

Ferguson has been attempting to rally his troops ahead of tomorrow's trip to Blackburn.

That victory will take United top is confirmation of how close the title race is, even though Chelsea are now overwhelming favourites.

Wayne Rooney has been ruled out with an ankle injury, while Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville are all expected to start.

However, moving on has not been that easy, with Ferguson annoyed by the way his team's performance has been overlooked in the wake of their defeat.

Ferguson's relationship with the media has never been particularly close, and when quizzed about the reporting of his post-match grumble about "typical Germans", the Scot went on the offensive.

"It is hard to understand the press," he said. "Someone told me that coming back from the Champions League final in Rome last year they were all delighted on the press bus that we lost.

"The person who told me was disgusted. That is a fact. He had no reason to lie to me.

"Our performance on Wednesday was fantastic. At 3-0 it could have been 5-0. We were magnificent. Absolutely magnificent.

"But that gets lost just because people want a headline out of what I said about the Germans. That is disgusting because the players deserved some praise."