Darren Bent might only have scored one goal in an England shirt but, following his surprise move to Aston Villa, top-flight managers have now spent a total of £53m to acquire the striker’s services throughout his career. The reason? As has been widely quoted this week, only Didier Drogba and Wayne Rooney have scored more Premier League goals than Bent since the summer of 2005. What’s more, the 26-year-old’s tally is only one fewer than that of the Chelsea and Manchester United strikers.
Why, then, has the size of Bent’s transfer fee been so widely derided? After 32 strikes in 58 league appearances on Wearside, it is not difficult to see why Gérard Houllier has identified the former Ipswich, Charlton and Tottenham player as the man to address his side’s goals-for column as they languish in seventeenth place in the table. Does £24m for Darren Bent represent any more of an abandonment of common sense on Aston Villa’s part than the £27.5m that Manchester City paid Wolfsburg last week for Edin Džeko? After all, the Bosnian’s goalscoring ratio of 66 in 111 games in the Bundesliga works out at but 0.04 goals better than Bent’s average at Sunderland.
Perhaps the indifference that a lot of fans in England feel when presented with the statistical merits of Darren Bent as a forward is rooted in his failure to stick around at one club long enough to truly become a part of any set of supporters’ affections. Since breaking through as a teenager at Ipswich, Bent has followed up that spell with relatively brief stints at three clubs. Two years in south-east London were followed by two years in the north of the capital, and just eighteen months in the north-east.
Another factor could be that, for all Bent’s personal success plundering goals, this has not always coincided with his various clubs enjoying a happy period. Sunderland are the first club he has left in a better position to the one in which he joined them. The striker was only 18 when Ipswich were relegated in 2002 at the end of his first season as a professional but Charlton went down five years later despite Bent hitting the net 13 times. His £16.5m move to Spurs went through that summer but, following the exit of Martin Jol as manager, there followed Juande Ramos’ year in charge at White Hart Lane that admittedly brought League Cup success but also left the club bottom of the table with two points from eight games at the beginning of the 2008/2009 season.
Leaving a team lying sixth for one just above the relegation zone with such eagerness – even handing in a transfer request to push the deal through – inevitably raises the issue of any financial incentives that Bent might have been offered to swap red-and-white for claret-and-blue. Nonetheless, had this transfer been proposed during the close season, after Villa had finished the previous campaign seven places and 20 points better off than Sunderland, then the move would have made a lot more sense – particularly with the £26m that Manchester City stumped up for James Milner leaving Villa newly flush.
Taking all these ideas together, then, perhaps being a player still in his mid-twenties who is already on to his fifth employer, who experienced relegation with two of them and left another after two tumultuous seasons for the club, and who has now opted to leave a team seemingly on the up for one fighting for its Premier League survival, all counts against Bent’s image. That is not to say that he is an unpopular player with fans – he might be a Villain now, but Bent is a long way from being disliked in the way that, say, El Hadji Diouf is – but he just doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as well-loved or well-respected as a player with his obvious scoring ability should be.
With Stewart Downing and Ashley Young to supply him, Bent should be provided with the opportunity to add to his goal tally and help lift Aston Villa away from trouble at the foot of the table. However, if he is to make a name for himself as something more enduring than a reliable Premier League scorer, he should try to stay in Birmingham long enough to work his way into the fans’ long-term memory. Should Villa climb the table this campaign and push for a return to the top six next term – thanks to Bent’s goals – then it could also see him become a fixture in the England team in time for Euro 2012. For their part, Sunderland fans will probably remember that they still have Asamoah Gyan, Jordan Henderson and (once fit again) Danny Welbeck, and find it easier to forget about the player they’ve just sold for a very tidy profit.
Follow William Abbs on Twitter.
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