Well, nearly and how nice that would have been, "Fulham manager Martin Jol admits his regret at missing out on Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku last season, but claims he chose Darren Bent over the Belgian this summer. "I wanted to have him on loan last year,â Jol admitted. âBut, they wanted him to come back if he would have done well before January, and I said 'no, I want him for the whole season', I was wrong, I should have taken him for the four or five months." âThis year was different because they couldn't make their mind up and they needed their strikers. On the last day, he went to Everton and there was no chance for us. Because we already had Bent, and you can only have a [certain amount of] similar players.â Source: http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896/premier-league/2013/09/19/4274030/- .
As much as I like Bent, I would take Lukaku over him simply because he is stronger, less injury prone and younger. Shame. Oh, well.
Can you imagine what this board would have been like if we'd gone to deadline day without Bent and hoping to beat Everton to a player who may or may not have been available for loan? That would have been painful.
I don't think it's strictly true that he chose Bent over Lukaku, that's stretching it a bit far. When we signed Bent, Lukaku wasn't available.
No, he chose Bent because he was good and available. Chelsea didn't make their minds up until right at the deadline. To choose Lukaku over Bent we would have had to run it right down to the deadline and hoped we could beat off Everton, if Lukaku was even available, and risked ending up with no-one. It's all very well to say you'd prefer Lukaku over Bent, but it was never a real choice. That is really stretching it a bit far.
