Quite a bit. It's often like playing with 10 men when Bent's in the team. Perhaps McLeish can get the best out of him?
I tend to agree with the general view of Bent, that he was a luxury we didn't need, but I do confess that he is a real conundrum for me. He's probably the best natural striker we'll see in a long time, but I can also see the merit in the argument that he's simply too stupid to play in a team that has aspirations of finishing in the top 4. Hence, he's the best striker that we never wanted to play for us
I yawn when I think of all the Bent articles telling us how good he was, how we never should have sold him, never treated him fairly etc, etc. For me he is very lucky to have got as far as he has in his football career. I see little talent, little understanding, little contribution to the team effort, just the knack of sometimes being in the right place to get the ball to bounce of some part of his anatomy into the goal. Goodbye Bent, all the best, don't ring us as we wont ring you.
Crouch has (correct me if I'm wrong) one of the best goals per game ratios out of the current England crop yet know one jumped on the bandwagon with him - Now Bent scores a tap-in and he's a suddenly a must-have striker? I really don't see what's so great about him.
At the time, I simply couldn't understand why Spurs sold Darren Bent to Sunderland. And now, over two years later, that decision seems more insane than ever.
I hear Spurs fans say that he didn't offer anything to the team. But as a striker scoring goals, what else do you want? He was your top scorer during the season that he was sold. Did he fall out with the manager? As an outsider, you have to say that it looked like a shot in the foot.
And yet the team he's at always seems to fail. Funny that. Ipswich? Relegated. Charlton? Relegated. Spurs? 11th and 8th, when the two seasons either side resulted in three 5th place finishes and one 4th. Sunderland? 13th and 10th. Villa? 9th. The man's a passenger most of the time. He genuinely seems to have the ability to stop other players in the team from scoring, somehow.
Put it this way - I'd say that Crouch could possibly be a better striker that we never wanted. And that's just in the last three months... As for the fish/pond analogy - I'd say it still works. Most international games are against Championship/League One standard teams. Plus, let's not forget, England is hardly a massive pool of talent, is it? Surprised that an Arsenal fan can't see the problem with a technically-challenged striker who offers nothing to the team other than a goal every other game. Are standards dropping that far at the Emirates?
Well regardless of the assumptions of some, I'm actually making a valid enquiry. Any striker with a 2:1 ratio has got to be worth being in a team. I understand the parallels that PNP makes about Bent being in rubbish teams, but might that not have more to do with the rest of the team, rather than Bent? As I've said, I can't see why a striker with a prolific strike rate could be considered to be worthless to the team.
Because, Piskie, it really is no exaggeration - he offers you nothing else. As an Arsenal fan who's recently had the likes of Bergkamp, Henry, Van Persie (enjoy him til January) you must realise that top teams need strikers who are more than just goalscorers. At Spurs we'd only just lost Berbatov and Keane - we were used to strikers doing more than just poaching. Could you imagine Darren Bent making the pass for VDV against your lot last week? Piskie - would you want Arsenal to sign Darren Bent? And do you see Man Utd making a bid if they have a lot of injuries come January (and Man City have already taken Van Persie)?
PISKIE maybe you have not seen much of Bent. He was bought buy Spurs at IMO a vastly over the top price (16m?) largely on his performance for Charlton. From the start I thought he was very overated and the hype was all based on stats. Now what stats never show is what would have happened if he had not been in the team, that's why they are always a floored way to judge a footballer. The only way is to watch them play to see how they perform in a team and how the team performs with them. Most of Bents goals result from chaos in the penalty area caused for example by high balls coming in. Very few come from the kind of slick one touch passing that is the hall mark of Spurs teams from the 1950's until the present day. In other words he is not the kind of player that fits into a skill based team. A better fit would be Sunderland or that Charlton team but even there he was shown to be lacking in team contributions. IF he was a deadly finisher who rarely missed a chance then he would be worth his place, he is not, add up his missed chances and you have a better picture. If he is in a team that team tries to feed him with chances (he is after all the striker) in doing so they neglect other ways of producing chances and in the end score less goals than they might have if he was not there in the first place. He is just not a good enough footballer to hold down the crucial and focused position of striker.
