The Benny Dilemma

What do we do with Benny? It's clear his days at Spurs are over having been separated from the group and told to train alone. His bridges are well and truly burned.

With his contract set to expire next June 2015, he's sat in the squad doing nothing and apparently being paid £40k a week. Clearly Harry didn't want to keep him at QPR which was our best chance of getting shot of him. It seems like pie in the sky if the club seriously think he'll be sold to anyone in January at any notable fee. At 30, his market value must be pretty low, especially with his lack of football and divisive opinions on "the job" he does. By my calculations, he'll have received just over £1m in wages by the end of the January transfer window if he's not sold having done sod all.

I have nothing against the bloke personally but his time at Tottenham has clearly come to and end. So why continue to pay him if his salary could be put to good use elsewhere? Each week, we throw money down the drain that could be used to improve the younger, hungrier players wages or elsewhere. If it were my decision, I'd tear up his contract and cut our losses. There's no way we'll sell him at any kind of fee that will recoup his salary.

 

Give him a free transfer

 

I'm glad I don't work for you since you seem to think employment contracts are not legally binding.....

 

Players are "released" on a regular basis in football which is effectively the same thing. Just take David Bentley as a prime recent example at our club. A free transfer can only occur when the transfer window opens. If he's released, he can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants. Whilst employed at Spurs, he's tied down. So why is releasing him so draconian? It means he has the freedom to choose his own future. It's a win-win situation.

 

does the player have to agree to be released though? I'd imagine he does.

Unless he's done something like gross misconduct or breached his contract i don't think you can just get rid

 

Ffs, lol.

 

Yeah, Benny's not going to earn anything close to £40k a week again, he'll have to rebuild his reputation by scratch, if he's even bothered about it. My guess is that Benny's not bothered about resuming a football career.

 

Possibly but he's turned down several loan offers in the Championship so he's clearly not that desperate to play is he? It's a shame because at his best, he was great for us but it's clearly gone very sour of late since AVB came in. His reputation has clearly hindered his chances of a good move. Stupid really. I can't see anyone wanting to buy a player with his record in January when he'll be free in June. That's a lot to pay someone to sit on their backside.

 

The best we can hope for is that someone pays part of his salary to take him on loan.

 

If we wanted to terminate his contract early the club would either have to mutually agree with Benny an amount to pay him off or if Benny refused to be released, I think we'd have to pay the remaining months wages in a lump sum (or a figure near that). So unless Benny agreed to be released either for free or for an amicable sum, it wouldn't make much of a difference if we kept him til his contract expired or decided to terminate it in Jan/ now. I think the only way his contract can be terminated without a pay off is if we actually sacked him but then there'd need to be a valid reason (breach of contract/ committing a crime), which as far as I know Benny hasn't done.

If I'm honest, I think Benny has been harshly treated, there was clearly some bad blood between he and AVB (wasn't the only player) which didn't help him at the time and what nailed his coffin was his backing of Anelka's supposed Quenelle gesture which was accused of being anti-Semitic. Of course we'll never know Anelka's true motive behind his celebration but I personally believe that what ever he was trying to signify was NOT anti-Semitic and Benny's backing was down to believing the gesture was an anti-establishment remark. It's a massive shame at how sour things have got between him and the club, he's been without a doubt our best LB in the Premier League era and at one point I considered him one of the best LB's in the League and possibly even Europe yet one supposed mistake has seen him fall from the ladder to a situation where even Championship clubs don't seem interested in taking him, despite the fact he's probably still better than many Prem LBs!

When Benny does leave, whether that be an early release/ sale/ loan in January or when his deal expires in the Summer, I really wish him all the best and hope that he can get a top flight move somewhere, maybe back to France or a move to Italy may suit him, I think he'd do well in Serie A.

 

BAE blew it at QPR. When even Arry no longer thinks you're triffic, you're done.
He is quite honest about being meh about football as a career, and is no doubt happy
now to think job done and sit it out til end of contract.

 

Is he actually training at the Lane or sitting in a park singing"...day light come and I wanna go home!"

 

The fact he's honest about how it's just a career is refreshing to me. Believe me a lot of them see it like that, doesn't mean they try any less than others.

"If I play football with my friends back in France, I can love football,"

"But if I come to England, where I knew nobody and I didn't speak English... why did I come here? For a job.

"A career is only 10, 15 years. It's only a job. Yes, it's a good, good job and I don't say that I hate football but it's not my passion."

He went on: "Whatever attitude you bring to it, it doesn't matter as long as you are 100 per cent professional, the coach can say, 'He is good enough', and you are prepared to lose a tooth or an eye for the club, which I am."

 

The problem with the media is that they like to focus on a select edited version of events to manipulate a story. If you took "...yes, it's a good, good job and I don't say that I hate football but it's not my passion" in isolation, it appears far different to what is being said if you read BAE's entire quote. And that's the crux of the matter.

Sadly, this goes on in all walks of life where the media is concerned and frankly, people are too naive or lazy to look past it or go any deeper. Everything is taken and accepted at face value without question. This is the stuff that careers are destroyed, elections are won and lost and wars are fought over such misrepresentations.

 

Who cares...he's done and good riddance...save Spurs some money.

Can't be arsed getting all romantic about a waster.

 

Why is he a waster? Like flaspur said the media have made him a villain and too many people have fell for it.

 

what happened with BAE, I thought under harry he was brilliant for a couple of seasons but under AVB it just seemed to go wrong, shame to end his career with spurs like this. The BAE/Bale partnership was unstoppable in the 2011-2012 season

 

Assou-Ekotto fell out with Villas-Boas, then went on loan to QPR and had issues there and seemed unwanted by Sherwood.
Pochettino doesn't seem to want to touch him with a barge pole and nobody's come in for him, plus there were rumours of him causing unspecified problems behind the scenes.

I don't think that the media are responsible for his current problems, to be honest.
The quenelle thing probably didn't help, but I think that there's more to it than that.

It's a shame, as he's capable of being a good player, certainly a better left-back than Danny Rose, in my opinion.
I think that he's burned his bridges at WHL, though. Move him on in January if we can, even if we have to give him some sort of severance package.

 

Best LB since Cyril..... And showed his commitment to Tottenham in ways that even most supporters didn't recognise. Definitely an acquired taste, but for me someone that needed to be nurtured not distanced. Our loss - and by the look of it, nobody's gain.... Wasted talent - arguably from both sides.
I wish him well in the future whatever path he takes. Thanks for the memories - and the mild occasional heart attacks

 

nothing better than watching Benny try a drag back in the six yard box and just getting away with it, I miss those days, chriches tries but he's not quite in the benny mold just yet