Darren Bent must know something we don’t know. The man has requested to be put on the transfer list to force a move from Sunderland to Aston Villa, with the Black Cats ‘reluctantly’ accepting a bid of an initial £18m rising to as much as £24m depending on his performance. Why would a player who has had such success with a squad that is knocking on the door to the European spots want to move to a club who have arguably performed the worst of any side in the Premier League this season relative to their stature?!
Bent’s ill-fated move to Spurs compared to the success he has enjoyed at Sunderland and initially at Charlton proves that he needs to be at a club that suits him. Since he signed for Sunderland in 2009 Bent has scored 32 goals in 58 Premier League games, with only Carlos Tevez and Didier Drogba having scored more (37 each). At Spurs he scored a relatively poor 18 goals in 60 Premier League appearances. Steve Bruce has resurrected the Darren Bent we saw at Charlton, and he is now a regular fixture in the England squad.
Bruce’s Sunderland squad is a midfielder or two away from being European quality. He has two excellent ‘keepers, three strikers who are all scoring regularly (Bent, Danny Welbeck and Asamoah Gyan) and seven quality defenders. If Bent does leave, the presence of Gyan means that it might be a bigger loss for him than it is for Sunderland, who will receive a good fee with a mark-up of at least £8m on a player who cost them £10m just 18 months ago. Chairman Niall Quinn will no doubt make at least a good portion of that available for transfers.
Since Gerard Houllier took over as Villa boss he has managed to guide them on a nosedive straight into the relegation places, with their draw at Birmingham at the weekend only wrenching them up into 17th place, ahead of Wigan in 18thon goal difference only. His strikers aren’t scoring, he has managed to alienate the formerly inspirational captain Richard Dunne, and promising players such as Ashley Young and Gabriel Agbonlahor have been playing within themselves (to be polite). Since Villa won 2-0 in Bent’s first PL match for the Black Cats against Villa, the two sides drew their next game and Sunderland have won the last two, which goes some way in showing the differing fortunes of the two sides over the past couple of years.
One positive would be that as Bent is perfectly suited to playing as a lone front man, and with Villa’s four strikers having scored just that number between them all season (three of those by Emile Heskey), he would undoubtedly be the main man. But then he was at Sunderland, where he has been keeping Gyan, officially the third best African player of 2010, on the bench. Perhaps Bent would prefer to live closer to his native London and to Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, the area he moved to aged 10. Maybe he is fed up with the North East, but then as a tee-total, unmarried man you would think that Bent would stick to the best career path for him, and the club most likely to get him closer to a regular place in England’s starting line-up. Surely that club is Sunderland.
Statzone (supplied by OPTA):
0 – The only PL clubs Bent has played against without scoring are Blackpool, Reading, Sheff Utd, Watford & WBA.
1 – Bent has only assisted one goal in the Premier League since joining Sunderland.
81 – Since August 2005 Bent has scored 81 Premier League goals. Only Rooney & Drogba (both 82) have more in the same period.
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