Monday, March 30, 2009

The Curious Case of Darren Bent

Love him or loathe him, Darren Bent has been involved in a lot of the Spurs talk this year. Mostly it's been about his poor form, moving on because Harry doesn't rate him, not getting on with Jermain Defoe, but he got the England call-up didn't he?

Does that say more about Bent coming back into form, or the lack of striker options for Capello at the moment?

I think we had all figured that Bent was moving on in the summer, and I still think that it's going to happen. But Harry might be under more pressure to keep him at the club now that he's getting another call-up to the England squad. He's played decently as of late with Robbie Keane and I don't see Harry changing things up at the weekend. If it's not broke, don't fix it, right?

But why should we keep Bent around? He seems to sulk whenever he's on the bench, and while I want our players to want to play every week, the sulking only seems to hurt his play when he does make it on the pitch.

When he does start it seems to take him awhile to get into the game, if he does at all. He's making a little bit of a connection with Keane now, but it's nowhere near instinctive, and for someone who cost us so much money, he does little to justify it.

That is Bent's biggest problem at the club I believe, his price tag. If he would have moved here for around 8 million pounds, maybe even 10 million, it would be a different story with the fans and him. But since he cost more than any other striker on our books at the moment, you expect him to, you know, score regularly. But as the miss at Portsmouth attests, Bent has not been prolific in front of goal for us.

Until this year I gave Bent the benefit of the doubt, because he never got a regular run in the side, with Keane, Defoe and Berbatov in front of him. I thought, "He's a lad who needs to be playing regularly before he can get in a groove." But after giving him the beginning of the season, and watching him fumble his chances throughout the year, I still think he should be moving on.

It would be better for everyone if he did, giving Bent a fresh start would allow him to get the weight off his back about the price tag, and for the club we could look for someone who is comfortable coming off of the bench and creating that spark in the 70th minute when we need it.

I'm happy Bent got the call to the England squad, though I don't expect to see him play on Wed. night. I'll be pulling for him when he suits up for the club through the rest of the year, but I think his future lies away from the Lane.

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