Darren Bent

[Houlston]

Every time I think of Darren Bent playing for Villa I touch myself. He's the natural goalscorer we've been crying out for for about 10 years.

That is all.

I love myself

I want Bent to love me

When I'm feelin' down

I want Bent above me

I search myself

I want Bent to find me

I forget myself

I want Bent to remind me

I don't want anybody else

When I think about Bent

I touch myself

Just for you TJVilla and probably Gareth

[DiegoD]

Every time I think of Darren Bent playing for Villa I touch myself. He's the natural goalscorer we've been crying out for for about 10 years.

That is all.

I love myself

I want Bent to love me

When I'm feelin' down

I want Bent above me

I search myself

I want Bent to find me

I forget myself

I want Bent to remind me

I don't want anybody else

When I think about Bent

I touch myself

Just for you TJVilla and probably Gareth

thats brilliant

[Oaks]

I dont overrate him, it quite clear he is a top class premiership goal scorer. I know the limitations in his game, which also makes me believe he will be here for the next 3 years. Although his hold up/link up play hasn't been as bad as i thought.

[TJVilla]

Every time I think of Darren Bent playing for Villa I touch myself. He's the natural goalscorer we've been crying out for for about 10 years.

That is all.

I love myself

I want Bent to love me

When I'm feelin' down

I want Bent above me

I search myself

I want Bent to find me

I forget myself

I want Bent to remind me

I don't want anybody else

When I think about Bent

I touch myself

Just for you TJVilla and probably Gareth

thats brilliant

Bravo sir, bravo!

[gillett7]

Every time I think of Darren Bent playing for Villa I touch myself. He's the natural goalscorer we've been crying out for for about 10 years.

That is all.

I love myself

I want Bent to love me

When I'm feelin' down

I want Bent above me

I search myself

I want Bent to find me

I forget myself

I want Bent to remind me

I don't want anybody else

When I think about Bent

I touch myself

Just for you TJVilla and probably Gareth

Ha Ha that is quality

[Woodytom]

I think thats fair Oaks. i think hes proven, That he is a very good premiership goalscorer over the last 2 seasons. if your a premiership team, and need a goal, you can do worse than Darren Bent.

But there is a big difference between a top notch premiership goalscorer and a world class striker. Andy Cole and Robbie Fowler were top notch premiership goalscorers, as was Ian Wright. I wouldnt put any of them into a world class bracket.

[MMFy]

I think thats fair Oaks. i think hes proven, That he is a very good premiership goalscorer over the last 2 seasons. if your a premiership team, and need a goal, you can do worse than Darren Bent.

But there is a big difference between a top notch premiership goalscorer and a world class striker. Andy Cole and Robbie Fowler were top notch premiership goalscorers, as was Ian Wright. I wouldnt put any of them into a world class bracket.

I agree, but there's not many players in the league I would consider to be world class. Bent has come up with the goods consistently since he was at Charlton and it is a travesty for someone with such a tremendous goalscoring record to have not had more England caps. Especially when Liability Rooney, Gangly Crouch, Goal-shy Heskey and Bobby Shitting Zamora have been picked ahead of him...

[sir_gary_cahill]

I think thats fair Oaks. i think hes proven, That he is a very good premiership goalscorer over the last 2 seasons. if your a premiership team, and need a goal, you can do worse than Darren Bent.

But there is a big difference between a top notch premiership goalscorer and a world class striker. Andy Cole and Robbie Fowler were top notch premiership goalscorers, as was Ian Wright. I wouldnt put any of them into a world class bracket.

I agree, but there's not many players in the league I would consider to be world class. Bent has come up with the goods consistently since he was at Charlton and it is a travesty for someone with such a tremendous goalscoring record to have not had more England caps. Especially when Liability Rooney, Gangly Crouch, Goal-shy Heskey and Bobby Shitting Zamora have been picked ahead of him...

agree with all this, especially the bit about rooney

[DotsandCrosses]

I think thats fair Oaks. i think hes proven, That he is a very good premiership goalscorer over the last 2 seasons. if your a premiership team, and need a goal, you can do worse than Darren Bent.

But there is a big difference between a top notch premiership goalscorer and a world class striker. Andy Cole and Robbie Fowler were top notch premiership goalscorers, as was Ian Wright. I wouldnt put any of them into a world class bracket.

I agree, but there's not many players in the league I would consider to be world class. Bent has come up with the goods consistently since he was at Charlton and it is a travesty for someone with such a tremendous goalscoring record to have not had more England caps. Especially when Liability Rooney, Gangly Crouch, Goal-shy Heskey and Bobby Shitting Zamora have been picked ahead of him...

agree with all this, especially the bit about rooney

What, you'd prefer England to not play Rooney? :|

[Woodytom]

I think thats fair Oaks. i think hes proven, That he is a very good premiership goalscorer over the last 2 seasons. if your a premiership team, and need a goal, you can do worse than Darren Bent.

But there is a big difference between a top notch premiership goalscorer and a world class striker. Andy Cole and Robbie Fowler were top notch premiership goalscorers, as was Ian Wright. I wouldnt put any of them into a world class bracket.

I agree, but there's not many players in the league I would consider to be world class. Bent has come up with the goods consistently since he was at Charlton and it is a travesty for someone with such a tremendous goalscoring record to have not had more England caps. Especially when Liability Rooney, Gangly Crouch, Goal-shy Heskey and Bobby Shitting Zamora have been picked ahead of him...

agree with all this, especially the bit about rooney

so your saying Darren Bent isnt world class SGC??

[sir_gary_cahill]

did i say that? i can't stand the man, his actions on and off the field are a disgrace plus he is very overrated

[Shillzz]

Comical timing there SGC.

[sir_gary_cahill]

Comical timing there SGC.

[Woodytom]

did i say that?

If thats aimed at my question then you implied it wen you said you agree with everything in the post you quoted??

[sir_gary_cahill]

did i say that?

If thats aimed at my question then you implied it wen you said you agree with everything in the post you quoted??

i didn't even read your post, i believe bent is world class and would score goals in any side in world football and no that post was about rooney

[Woodytom]

did i say that?

If thats aimed at my question then you implied it wen you said you agree with everything in the post you quoted??

i didn't even read your post, i believe bent is world class and would score goals in any side in world football and no that post was about rooney

Fair enough, I disagree, based on he hasnt proven anything on a world stage yet.

Also, Im not sure your synopsis works tbh. Score goals for any team in world football? Surely the better the team ur in, the easier it is to score. A better way to look at it imo, wud be to judge whether or not he can consistently score against any team in world football.

If Villa played Man Utd 38 times next season, Darren Bent aint gettin 20 goals for me

[sir_gary_cahill]

did i say that?

If thats aimed at my question then you implied it wen you said you agree with everything in the post you quoted??

i didn't even read your post, i believe bent is world class and would score goals in any side in world football and no that post was about rooney

Fair enough, I disagree, based on he hasnt proven anything on a world stage yet.

Also, Im not sure your synopsis works tbh. Score goals for any team in world football? Surely the better the team ur in, the easier it is to score. A better way to look at it imo, wud be to judge whether or not he can consistently score against any team in world football.

If Villa played Man Utd 38 times next season, Darren Bent aint gettin 20 goals for me

In his 1 and a half years at sunderland, he scored against arsenal, liverpool, chelsea, tottenham and man utd. Since joining us in jan, he has scored against arsenal twice and man cit

[andym]

Out of our current/recent strikers, the best carew ever got for us was 13 prem goals, gabby's best is also 13. No point including heskey or harewood. Bent already has 9 goals for us and hes only been here since january! there's also the fact the team has not exactly been playing great this season, and he hasnt taken any pens. goals against man city, man u and arsenal (the latter both away games) so hes no flat track bully.

With bent, I now watch and listen to games not wondering if our striker will score, but how many he will score.

[sir_gary_cahill]

Out of our current/recent strikers, the best carew ever got for us was 13 prem goals, gabby's best is also 13. No point including heskey or harewood. Bent already has 9 goals for us and hes only been here since january! there's also the fact the team has not exactly been playing great this season, and he hasnt taken any pens. goals against man city, man u and arsenal (the latter both away games) so hes no flat track bully.

With bent, I now watch and listen to games not wondering if our striker will score, but how many he will score.

agreed entirely

[barry'sboots]

Really good article on Bent on ghostgoal. Apologies, but I am not sure how to post the link but the site is http://ghostgoal.co.uk/2011/05/19/darren-bent-the-truth/?. Maybe someone can edit this for me?

"When Darren “The Truth” Bent made his big money move from Sunderland to Aston Villa in January 2011, football fans everywhere were divided. For some, he was a striker who guaranteed the most important commodity in the game – goals. Others were adamant that this was symptomatic of the Anglocentric attitude towards scouting among Premier League clubs.

But what is the truth about Darren Bent?

On the face of it, he is surely one of the unluckiest players in the world today. Yes, I know he had a fair slice of luck with that beach-ball goal against Liverpool but take a look at the bigger picture. Last summer, Bent was the only player in the five major leagues of Europe to score 20 goals for a World Cup nation and not be selected for the tournament. Indeed, only Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney, Lionel Messi, Gonzalo Higuain, Cristiano Ronaldo and Antonio Di Natale managed more than Bent’s 24 league goals.

It’s a remarkable statistic that might be explained away by suggesting Bent was some sort of one-season-wonder. Of course, that’s not the case. The Villa striker has now scored more Premier League goals in the past three years than any other player. That’s more than Drogba, more than Rooney, more than Carlos Tevez and certainly more than Fernando Torres. And he’s done it in weaker sides than those players have had the opportunity to play in.

The counter-argument to this is that Bent has not done it and never would do it at the highest level. Not against the best defences in Europe anyway. Again, it’s worth examining the stats.

The table above shows Bent’s goalscoring record over the last three seasons against the top six sides in English football. It is quite astonishing. This is not a small sample that has been extrapolated to draw misleading conclusions – this is his record over more than 40 hours of game time against some of the finest sides in Europe. The 2436 minutes equates to a shade over 27 full matches. That’s 20 goals in 27 games against the top six over a three year period.

The key to understanding criticism of Bent is that there is far more to being a top-class centre forward these days than merely scoring goals. Universality is the future, not specialisation. It’s an argument that Stan Collymore articulated when explaining why Bent should not go to the World Cup last summer:

“Even allowing for his fine season, Carlton Cole and Bobby Zamora remain ahead of him. The reason? Well, at international or European club level, touch, awareness of space and an appreciation of team-mates’ positioning are as vital as the ability to score goals.”

The example of Cole was also advanced by Mark Bright and, even if that now feels less appropriate a year on, the issue of bringing others into play is at least a valid one. And besides, Collymore was happy to repeat his criticism of Bent when discussing his impending move to Aston Villa in January of this year:

“It just smacks of desperation. As an instinctive striker he gets a solid A, but as an all-round footballer he gets a D. Holding the ball up, his movement, his awareness, that’s why to me he would be massively overpriced. Being a £20m striker means that you have to be able to score goals but if you’re not scoring goals you can drop off, you can get involved in the play, you can draw other defenders in, you can create from wide positions. There’s a massive question mark about Darren Bent’s ability to fulfil that kind of remit.”

Collymore and – it has to be said – many other pundits were keen to labour the point that Villa should have been looking for a more complete footballer for their money. The Guardian conducted a poll asking if Bent was worth the £18m fee (said to be rising to £24m) and the result showed 76.8% felt the striker was not worth the money.

They were, however, less forthcoming about who this complete footballer might be that would like to come to Aston Villa. Within a couple of weeks of the Bent debate, the agenda had moved on anyway. Edin Dzeko’s arrival at Man City was followed by the £50m move of Fernando Torres and the emergence of £35m man Andy Carroll. The argument that Bent was overpriced was now something of a side issue – and so perhaps it’s better to return to the issue of him ‘just scoring goals’.

This criticism is largely justified. Bent’s technique is rudimentary and his hold-up play ordinary. This is a striker who prefers running onto the ball and, while that does have the advantage of forcing the opposition to play a deeper line, it doesn’t lend itself well to playing an active role in linking the play.

But some context here may help. Comparing Bent to a Rooney or a Messi is ludicrous and irrelevant. Evaluating his record against, say, Jermain Defoe is a more useful exercise. Defoe is also a player who prefers running onto the ball rather than developing the attack with his hold-up play. And yet, he was the man chosen by Fabio Capello, not only to go to the 2010 World Cup, but also to start the vital game against Germany.

It is therefore worthwhile looking at Defoe’s goalscoring record against England’s best teams. His stats over the same three year period against Man Utd, Chelsea, Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham are revealing. Defoe has scored five goals to Bent’s 20. This comes from a total game time of 1774 minutes – a goal every 354.8 minutes. Put simply, Defoe has scored five goals in nearly 20 games against the cream of English football compared to Bent’s 20 in 27. And yet, he was in England’s starting XI and Bent was not on the plane.

Is it possible, therefore, that – even as a £24m man - Bent can be both limited and underrated? Amid the hoopla of his January transfer, as wags everywhere joined in the mockery of Bent, the words of high-profile Norwegian football scout, Tor-Kristian Karlsen, resonated. Karlsen has long bemoaned the premiums paid on English-based talent and so his balanced assessment was revealing:

“For all the criticism he is an established Premier League star who’s proven capable of scoring consistently. The closest you come to an English 20-goals-a-season striker in the top flight. Ideal for any team that plays on the break or employs traditional attacking schemes without sophisticated collective patterns of movement. He has probably found his rightful home at an upper mid-table Premier League side.”

It’s a qualified endorsement but also an acknowledgement that Bent was probably the ideal signing for Aston Villa. The suspicion clearly remains that his limitations would be exposed on the world stage. But, given his record, perhaps Bent – ahead of Defoe and the rest – is a man who has earned the right to find out."

He is a quality striker and will score goals in any side IF you set your team up i.e. the other 9 outfield players, in such a way as to maximise his talent. I think we are starting to work this out but are an attacking CM'er (Milner please) and a winger to replace Ash (the Zog please) away from having the ideal set up IMO.