With the news that Russian hotshot Roman Pavlyuchenko is out for 3 weeks with an ankle injury, Tottenham find themselves in a bit of a pickle. The transfer policy of the last 12 months has now seen us go from an embarrassment of riches in the forward line to a loanee with virtually no Premiership experience... and Darren Bent.We at Spurs Club are absolutely convinced that Benty is a good player (well, at least two of us are). Back in 2005 Charlton had just gone down and the one player on their books of any note was England International Darren Bent. The player himself reportedly turned down several other offers in favour of his dream move to the Super Spurs.
Benty had a very good pedigree when he arrived at Tottenham, we paid £16m when £16m was a lot of money, but let's not forget at the time he was hot property and was coming off the back of not one but 2 exceptional seasons in the Premiership. However, Martin Jol preferred Keane and Defoe, and then the virtually unchangeable partnership of Keane and he-who-must-not-be-named, and so Bent had to bide his time and wait for his chance.
To his credit he has done this without complaint and now, his chance is here. After an incredible preseason many of us Benty fans were crowing "I told you so" to anyone who would listen, but that optimism has obviously dried up quicker than the proverbial nun's chuff. Bent has suffered along with the rest of the team. He has missed a few chances but has also shown in glimpses that he could be worth 20 goals again as long as we don't give up on hm.
However, if there's ever a player that you feel needs to play week in, week out it's Darren Bent, and I'm not sure he's going to get that at Tottenham. With Pav being injured he'll start against Stoke and Bolton, and assuming the three week estimate is accurate and he makes a good stab of the other games he'll probably get an opportunity to lead the line against Arsenal - three games that could end the daily misery we all experience at the moment and potentially establish Bent as flavour of the month.
Many fans would love to see him sold, but that in my opinion is bonkers. He's still only 23, British, has plenty of Premiership experience and obviously there's a talented player in there somewhere. I guarantee that if sold he will be another of our ex-players that goes on to score with irritating regularity for whoever we sell to.
And if we sold him we'd have to go out and buy not one, not two but 3 quality strikers. I don't know about you but the way we are going at the moment I struggle to see how we are going to get one. Talk of Huntelaar, Villa and Arshavin is pie in the sky while we are languishing in the bottom quarter. In fact even if we climb to mid table by January, Arshavin is the only sensible name of the three, and he's hardly busting his balls to move to North London - at least not to the white side anyway. No, as it stands the only aisles we can shop in are those labelled "out of contract" or "10 mil and under" - unless Comolli has something up his sleeve, and who'd risk a tenner on that one? (Please don't even talk to me about tranny loving, injury prone fat boy Ronaldo coming on some nonsensical pay-as-you-play arrangement - it's simply not going to happen.)
So for now Mr. Bent is the big cheese, and it might not be going too far to suggest that the next 270 minutes of his footballing career could be the most important of his life. Spurs ARE moving in the right direction. We had 27 attempts on goal against Hull, with 16 being on target. Stoke are there for the taking, as are Bolton at home, if Bent can put in the kind of performance some of us think he is capable of then wins from those 2 games and ANY kind of result against Arsenal will turn our season around.
So step up Darren Ashley Bent, your club needs you.
6 comments:
Benty can do it...he just needs the ball to his feet or into space and not crossed in high when he's marked by 2/3 defenders. We must play to his strenghts which is his pace and finishing when in front of goal. Give him room to run at players, he's not a knock-down or flick-on forward, he's a predator, a finisher and needs to be in situations where he can shoot not head the ball down for JJ or Zokora to blaze a shot into row z.
Buying of Bent was first step to the present Spurs position! He is absolutely useless! We must sell he and Pav and buy two world class strikers! Mr. Levy must think about Spurs position, at first, and about earning of money, in the second turn!
Signing a striker in the under 10m bracket in January? Worked for Portsmouth last season. If Defoe was still here we wouldn't be bottom of the league, and it was entirely the boards fault for selling him in January, knowing Berbatov would be leaving in the Summer. OK, he wouldn't sign a new contract - he had a year and a half left back then. I'm damn sure he would've put his name on the dotted line as soon as Keane left. And how much more than the measly 7m would he be worth to is now?????
To me, this is the boards worse mistake of their transfer dealings. Berbatov was always leaving, Keane was a sucker punch for everyone, can only really blame the player himself.
There were times when us lillywhites doubted the capability of most of our recent strike force.
Keane and Defoe both had long spells on the bench before they found their form and became established in the team.
I agree that Benty could be the same, when confidence eventually returns to the team I can see him start to bang 'em in.
I agree with the article completely. I hope that he takes this oppertunity with both hands and I also really hope that he and Frasier Campbell form a good partnership because I think that they could do well together.
How distance lends enchantment to the view. "If Defoe had not been sold we would not be bottom of the league." I'm flabbergasted at that misty-eyed view. How about keane? Berbatov? Malbranque? And all the others? The Spurs team has simply been turned over too impatiently, too quickly, too greedily. Too many new players with no or little experience in this league. And please don't say Berbatov and Keane WANTED to leave. We could've kept them.
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