Darren Bartholomew Bent
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 6:00PM Loved it when he scored the opener against Man Utd and wheeled away in celebration tapping his badge, which was blatantly wired up to an iPhone allowing him to Morse code a Tweet about his sassy clinical finish. The man is on fire.
No first touch. Can't drop deep. Has to have a big lump foil as a partner up front. Always scores against the 'big teams'. And if he's the main striker - he won't stop scoring full stop. Textbook confidence player? One-dimensional? Yes. But the stats do not lie. Play him and play him to his strengths.
Average footballer, great goal scorer. All he needs is a team that breaks at speed, counters and plays the ball in front of him into space to run into. Substance over style. Be done with all this Harry Redknapp possession football!
We should have built our team around him.
Discuss.
Reader Comments (40)
You've only gone and done it now!
cunt
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, I'd have rather we built are team around Sandra Redknapp and played entertaining football then predictable long balls for Benty to run onto.
126 years of smooth, flowing, passing football does not get given up lightly, especially not for Bolton's old game!
Nice one Jon, you twat. Way to miss the irony.
Spooky does it again.
Happy he's doing well. Even happier he's not playing (sh*t) for us.
Fabio Capello rates him - NOT!!! seriously if you can build your team around him he will get you goals but the top sides dont build their team round one individual, they have to be adaptable - and Darren isnt. Anyway isnt about how many he scores, its about where Sunderland finish. He will get them to a healthy mid table position but they wont be capable of any more (I really hope I dont end up eating these words)
Anyone who knows Spooky knows his true opinion of DB. I think this is a sly dig at certain Spurs fans knee-jerking to Bents good Sunderland form.
Sunderland play for Bent. Bent never 'played' for Tottenham in a true sense of being part of a 'unit'. Keane, for all his misgivings, provides us far more than Darren ever could. I see what you're doing Spooky. I know one or two who are slating us for not using Bent properly. Fact is there is no right way to use him in a Spurs side, unless we play football like Charlton did 6 years ago.
Least if he keeps scoring we will get all the add ons due to us from his sale. He will always get goals but was never right for us!
Every day I search for your latest thoughts. You never disappoint !!
bent does not fit into tottenham's philosophy of football. and we cant adapt to bent. i mean center backs will automatically target bent, yeah? his goals will no doubt dry up. he's been at a new club, he's happy, of course he's confident. but his one dimensional style will be "exposed" soon. fabio capello does not rate him highly. as shown by picking agbonlahor ahead of bent.
It's been said a thousand times. Decent player on confidence, without it, awful. Not suited for any Spurs side and yet another questionable £15M+ spent on a player that is simply not required.
See David Bentley.
piss off spook
Darren Bent and Andy Reid. Dream team. Sigh.... what might have been.
LOL. If anyone is 'old' enough, we've been here before with the Andy Bartholomew Reid obsession Spooky had back in the day.
Bent is on form now. He wont be all season long and if Sunderlands midfield hit a patch of non-productivity, Dazza will be shagged.
Only got one decent run in the spurs team and scored a load when harry first arrived last season and was key in getting us out of the relegation battle playing with modric behind him, keane and defoe cant operate against quality teams and score need to drop one of them and play pav or crouch with them. Never thought Bent was given a fair shot at spurs so good luck to him he's allowed to be a bit annoyed that he was signed when the manager didnt want him and when his manager when he's the clubs topscorer publicly criticises him over a miss that while very bad there are a lot more that no manager would ever criticise. Harry wouldnt have had a go at keane or defoe about that.
But who cares when modric gets back to fitness and we get a little man big man combo (any of them) think we're a match for anyone!!! Please Harry give Gomes his place back he's just better than cudicini who's parry against bolton was all to robinsonesque!
Ah Benty Benty Benty. On form at the moment, won't last. He's a good striker of the ball. A very decent finisher, but if its not on a plate he wont be eating.
Darren Bent could, and perhaps should, have been a Tottenham great. He was excellent at clubs like Ipswich and Charlton - scoring goals for fun which ultimately made us stump up £16m for his services.
Fact of the matter is Tottenham ruined yet another talent, hardly ever played him (an when he did he scored quite a few). People speak of style of play - that is total and utter bollocks, he is a goalscorer first and foremost and any player that can notch for fun in the Premiership is worth having and Sunderland are getting the benefits of a confident and, more importantly, a wanted Darren Bent.
The real problem was at the time we purchased Bent, a striker wasn't a necessity as we had more than enough talent in that department and that lead to him getting bit part chances here and there, denting his confidence and not allowing him to repay the huge price tag hanging over his head - not his fault.
I agree with peoples comments that he often looked lazy and uninterested and the whole ipod issue coupled with the misses v Arsenal and Pompey and his comments after leaving will leave a bad taste, but lets see it all from his position - his goals per game ratio was actually quite good for Spurs and all he got was slagged off to the hilt - all mainly to do with his price tag (which he had nothing to do with). If we'd bought him for £6-7m (ie what he was prob worth) then everyone would have thought he was a decent squad member to have at the club - the fact WE payed £16m just made everyone hate him.
Oh by the way, fuck off goonerjake !
As an Ipswich fan, I take slight offence at people saying Bent can't fit into a team that plays good attractive passing football, when at Ipswich he did just that. OK i accept he didn't fire at spurs - and the reasons why I don't know.
Sunderland are starting to play some slicker football too (refer to Saturday's game against Man Utd) and Bent is doing nicely. Like him on not but when he plays regularly he scores goals.
IMO I think th deal was right for both parties - Spurs have a potent attack and flying high and, albeit separately, so to is Darren.
I wish both Spurs and Darren well.
In fact, I think Bent has demonstrated this season at Sunderland that he's actually not quite so one-dimensional as I've always claimed he was, rather annoyingly. Tracking back and helping out in defence, holding the ball up a little bit, even engaging in actual interplay, for heaven's sake, with his strike partner, instead of just ploughing his usual forlorn furrow about the opposition's 18-yard line with his hands in his pockets. Quite why he could never get close to exhibiting any of those qualities at Spurs is a question that might warrant a wee bit of examination in itself.
I think everyone knew he'd be scoring, I stuck him in the dream team knowing full well that he'd score a few this season. But as already covered, unless we went and spunked 15m on Andy Reids left foot for the long ball, he'd have never achieved at Tottenham.
Sunderland are playing much better under Bruce. He's on his way to taking over Manure. And Bruce's comments to media regarding Bent have all been made with the purpose of pumping up his confidence, (not un/intentionally ruining it). Harry wanted Jones to play with Bent or Defoe last year and it looks like the pairing is working. Of course, Bent still has all the faults listed above (and he always runs to the far post when anticipating a cross) , but 8 in 8 is solid.
I thought that Darren did very well when he came in for Sandra last year.Seriously though, i rated him a better finisher than Berbatov and that's the reason we payed so much for them,to score goals.If Harry can sort out the defence and put Gomes back in goal,then happy days will be here again.
The trouble is football fans see the world in Black and White, unfortunately for us there are shades of grey out there!
Harry appears to have a plan, knows what and who he wants, unfortunate for young Mr Bent but there you have it.
In Harry we Trust!
The trouble is football fans see the world in Black and White, unfortunately for us there are shades of grey out there!
Harry appears to have a plan, knows what and who he wants, unfortunate for young Mr Bent but there you have it.
In Harry we Trust!
Tottenham should never have bought him. We already had the top scoring forwards in the league. His arrival was the the catalyst for the break up of a very effective group and led to unrest. Only Levy and Comolli thought it was a good plan but it was a terrible plan. If they had spent that £16.5 million more wisely Martin Jol would have got us into the Champions and 3 odd bods League.
He was always on a loser at Tottenham because most Spurs fans didnt want him in the team from the start ahead of Defoe ,Keane or Berbatov .
Good luck to him though he seems like a nice guy who came to us at the wrong time.
Bent will always score goals. If that's what you want. Even when he was here he was our best finisher. I'm just sorry - and puzzled - we couldn't find a way to use his undoubted talent. Oh well, best of luck to him.
stats 2008-9....
D bent :......7th with 12 goals...
J defoe:.... 19th with 10 goals
highest spurs scorer for last season.......
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he is currently the second highest scorer in the epl
with a new club a new effort is usually the case......
but he does score.....over a season......
cant figure out the for and against........various reasons in style with alternative in crouch etc
maybe if pav was sold instead of bent?
really though the players all have to feel is moving on as a unit.....
so with the twitter comments which was ludicrous to publicly slate levy a director of thfc
whilst negotiations are going on regarding his contract etc showed more in the breakdown of internal opinion and respect for a process ......
whatever the emotions of opinion are on bent , thfc have moved on and are a shade more diverse in selection as an attacking force
with crouch height etc .........
like keane etc bent has left question marks in his form at times last year .........so really when you look at the start this season its the best we,ve had for 49 years etc........
so a different situation as redknapp tries to transform our club is proving real
Yes Bent scores goals but 9 times out of 10 he's left stood there with that confused look on his face as another sitter is missed.
"Seriously though, I rated him a better finisher than Berbatov" Oct 6, 2009 at 6:38 AM | supersonic yid
That's the stupidest thing that I've ever read on here!
Oh by the way, fuck off goonerjake !
Oct 5, 2009 at 10:26 PM | SpursLA
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And what the fuck has he got to do with this blog? man,your a fucking idiot! go and eat some burgers.
bent needed a team that would play to his strengths and a manager that fully supported him and he's got that now
spurs need fit defenders and good ones at that
I was disappointed that people got on Bent's back while he was at Spurs. Admittedly he wasn't pretty to watch at times but he tried his best and scored goals, a fair few of which helped keep us up. Consider that he had to try and form a partnership with either a raw youngster in Campbell or the apparently knackered and homesick Pav and on reflection he did pretty well. The club was also in a mess at the time.
As an interesting counterpoint Berbatov, who is a more accomplished footballer than Bent, is having a bit of a nightmare in a far better team than Sunderland. Perhaps this is a comparative case of "big fish, even bigger pond" for both players, neither able to handle the pressures of stepping up to a bigger club. Berb was the main man for us, everything went through him whereas Bent was fourth choice when he first signed and struggled. When he did get his chance it was due to circumstances that Spurs fans found difficult to accept (Berb on strike, Keane flouncing off, Defoe offloaded) and he became the embodiment of everything that was wrong at the club at the time. Bent is now the first name on the team sheet at Sunderland, the fans love him (just as he was at Charlton in both respects) and his new found confidence is manifesting itself in goals.
We're still better off without him though. All the parties concerned have benefited from his transfer and I'm sure that Defoe would have scored more than 12 goals if he hadn't been injured towards the end of last season.
Anyone with half a football brain knows that Bent simply did not fit our style of play. The other key thing is that teams often come to WHL and park the bus. With a deep sitting defence lined up on the 18 yard box, Bent had no room ahead of him to use his best attributes, his pace and finishing. He had to work in tight areas with his back to goal....in such situations he was useless. Bent plays an uncomplicated style which suits a team with an uncomplicated style. He will always thrive against teams where he is given some space, which is often the better teams with a more attacking style and who defend further up the pitch, giving him that space to run in to.
He will do well for Sunderland as he did for Charlton for these very reasons.
he scores for another team so in a way that hurts but i will never give up the joy of real football in all its diversity to play counter attacks and have just one scoring striker ... good for Darren that he scores good for us that lost of different spurs players score after nicely conceived attacking movements ...
Since he would not be starting regularly, the question is whether you'd rather have DB than Crouch. I personally think Crouch has more to offer as a sub / occasional starter. Bottom line: he's better off, Spurs are better off. COYS.
I think that Berbatov struggling or at least not making that great an impact at Man U was very predictable when he signed. At Spurs he was the number one player; everything revolved around him. Simple tactics, get the ball and give it to Berbatov. Then when he went to United he was always going to be a supporting player. They already had Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez etc. I think that he was either badly advised or naïve if he thought that he was going to have anything like the impact and game time that he did at Spurs. He’s still earning lots of money though and he’s got medal and trophies (although he’s hardly contributed much to them) so as long as that makes him happy, that’s fine.
Very similar to Henry going to Barca. At Arsenal he was the main man and everything revolved around him. That was never gonna be a the case at Barca. Still he has a CL medal now. Bent was always going to be a success at Sunderland as he was going to be their main striker and the team is now set up for him to score. It was the opposite at Spurs, a square peg in a round hole. We never should have signed him.
Agree with "next seasons" comments on this one. Bent was never a bad player just a square peg for a round hole.
Mr Capello seems to know quite a bit about football (!!!) and you will have noticed that he also seems to prefer Defoe to Bent.
Form is temporary, class is permenant.