[cite]Posted By: colthe3rd[/cite]Technically I don't think he is that gifted but has a very handy knack of being in the right place at the right time, strong and quick oh and scores shed loads of goals. This is a strange one, I can't imagine it is all about money, he can hardly be on peanuts at Sunderland and I can't see Villa offering that much more for wages.
surely part of his technique is his positioning? His positioning and sight on when to make a run or hold up to consistently beat the offside is second to none.
The stories about his mum getting racially abused doesn't shock me. I had the dis-pleasure of living in that neck of the woods for 6 yrs and i found the population in general to be racist, sexist bigots (and that was just the women). It's like stepping back in time to the good ol 70's.
No one would bat an eyelid if it was £18m for Defoe. Bent scores more goals against better teams (whilst playing for inferior teams) than every striker in the Premiership apart from Drogba and Rooney.
Not too sure about this "Never meet your hero's" saying.
Met Darren on several occasions and always found Him to be a genuinely nice guy. Mrs MOG works at NineElms with Darrens Father (Yado's dad works there too) and the whole family seem "down to earth" people. IMHO I think something has gone on "behind the scenes" as Darren gave the impression that He was happy at the Black Cats.
[cite]Posted By: JohnBoyUK[/cite]Sunderland have apparently bid £19m for Sandra Redknapp ;-)
...and if there's a couple of quid in it for Harry then it's a done deal.
£24m is the sort of money that only superstars of the game should go for in my opinion but unfortunately it doesn't work that way any more does it? As it is if a 27 year old Drogba were available now he'd be a lot more valuable than that and Benty is just one goal behind him and Rooney in the hit parade so maybe it's not as silly a price as it first seems. Villa are buying themselves maybe 10-12 goals between now and the end of the season which their current strikers don't look like scoring between them. If that results in them staying up, and I think it will do, then he's paid back his transfer fee in spades.
As others have said, I suspect DB has reasons other then strictly financial for this move...but the signing on fee must be nice too.
£24 Million (potentially) for a player Curbishley bought for £2.5 million. That will probably take some beating for the highest ever fee paid for an ex Charlton player.
Darren was exemplary when he was our player. I absolutely don't blame him for chasing the money. Footballers have a short shelf life and he is the stand out striker in the Premier League, who doesn't play for the top four or five clubs. It would just be nice if he accepted the truth rather than play along with the PR team. Here is what he said (taken from BBC Sport)
The London-born star, who began his professional career at Ipswich and also played for Charlton, said: "Aston Villa is a massive football club.
"As soon as I knew they were interested in signing me I wanted to join. The size of the club and its history are major reasons for me coming here.
"There are some top, top players here too, real quality, and I've been able to speak to the manager and the owner about their ambitions for the club. I'm very excited about being a part of what we hope to achieve."
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Come on Darren don't insult our intelligence. Sunderland are 6th in the table. They are also a big club with passionate support and their board have ambitions for the club. Villa are in the bottom three, have a dodgy squad and a miserable bunch of supporters who continue to believe that somehow that are more massive a club than their recent history would suggest. Why would you leave other than for the money?
[cite]Posted By: incorruptible addick[/cite]Reading this seems to suggest there has been a bit of argy-bargy or controversy over all four of his transfers :
I think there is a fair amount of media spin on that story. Turning down a contract to move to charlton, well quite a few players are running down their contracts to move on, turned down west ham to go to spurs - well why not, even then spurs looked more likely to develop upwards than west ham and spurs to sunderland, ok he got caught out by the phenomenon known as twitter as has Kevin Peterson, Ryan babel etc,.
i think it is only media driven controversy, nothing in it really.
[cite]Posted By: incorruptible addick[/cite]Reading this seems to suggest there has been a bit of argy-bargy or controversy over all four of his transfers :
[cite]Posted By: incorruptible addick[/cite]Reading this seems to suggest there has been a bit of argy-bargy or controversy over all four of his transfers :
I don't think you can criticise him from moving to Spurs instead of West Ham. Surely he made what he thought was the better choice.
Not criticising him for anything. I posted a link to a BBC article which makes some interesting points.
But from what I remember there was some diifficulty when he left Charlton. I think we shook hands on a deal with West Ham and he refused to go, which didn't please our board at the time -or something like that ? Bent held out for something better - and he got it. So fair enough.
Not sure why Kevin Phillips - who people on here were suggesting yesterday would be a good signing for us - is putting the boot into DB. You don't often find current players attacking their professional bretheren like that, so I wonder what is behind it?
Ipswich - Charlton good move at that stage of his career. Charlton - Spurs. Crazy fee. We were never going to keep him. Spurs - Sunderland. Harry treated him like shit. Who can blame him for sounding off? Sunderland - Villa. Odd one. Probably more to it.
Didnt we try and sign him the season before we did but he didnt want to move as wanted to try and get promoted with Ipswich? Got no problem with the way he handled himself here - would probably be a bit pissed if i was a sunderland fan though, but like others say i get the feeling there's more too it.
[quote][cite]Posted By: jac52[/cite]Didnt we try and sign him the season before we did but he didnt want to move as wanted to try and get promoted with Ipswich? Got no problem with the way he handled himself here - would probably be a bit pissed if i was a sunderland fan though, but like others say i get the feeling there's more too it.[/quote]
[cite]Posted By: jac52[/cite]Didnt we try and sign him the season before we did but he didnt want to move as wanted to try and get promoted with Ipswich? Got no problem with the way he handled himself here - would probably be a bit pissed if i was a sunderland fan though, but like others say i get the feeling there's more too it.
[cite]Posted By: jac52[/cite]Didnt we try and sign him the season before we did but he didnt want to move as wanted to try and get promoted with Ipswich? Got no problem with the way he handled himself here - would probably be a bit pissed if i was a sunderland fan though, but like others say i get the feeling there's more too it.
Money.
Unfair. Wet Spam were offering Bent a LOT more than Spuds in the summer of 2007 but he preferred to go to Spurs because they were the better choice football wise.
I find it hard to believe that this move is solely about money given that Villa under Lerner are pulling their belts in tighter than ever, it is more likely that he has had enough of being in the North East and wants to come back to civilisation. Or a bit closer at least!
[cite]Posted By: LargeAddick[/cite]I must be the only one but I don't think Sunderland's squad really stands up to comparison with Villa's despite League positions.
Villa have far better players IMO and won't be in the position they are for long. Good luck Benty, you won't find me saying a bad word against you.
True, Villa have some brilliant young players there and if they can get a few older heads in and get rid of the wasters like Carew then they will be on the up again.
Its possible that Villa have a stronger squad. It is also possible that Darren would like to work under Houlier.
I believe that he has been unhappy for some time. Wasn't there a bid from overseas for him in the summer that the Mackems rejected or did I dream that?
Maybe he hasn't settled. He claims that when he went to Spurs it was for footballing reasons and not for the money because he could have gone to Wet Spam for more. We have only got his word for that. Wet Spam offered more transfer money but were their personal terms better?
I wish him well. I hope he goes on to play regularly for England. I just think it is mainly about money. I don't begrudge him that, I just wish he could say that.
[cite]Posted By: LargeAddick[/cite]I must be the only one but I don't think Sunderland's squad really stands up to comparison with Villa's despite League positions.
Villa have far better players IMO and won't be in the position they are for long. Good luck Benty, you won't find me saying a bad word against you.
Comments
Met Darren on several occasions and always found Him to be a genuinely nice guy. Mrs MOG works at NineElms with Darrens Father (Yado's dad works there too) and the whole family seem "down to earth" people. IMHO I think something has gone on "behind the scenes" as Darren gave the impression that He was happy at the Black Cats.
...and if there's a couple of quid in it for Harry then it's a done deal.
£24m is the sort of money that only superstars of the game should go for in my opinion but unfortunately it doesn't work that way any more does it? As it is if a 27 year old Drogba were available now he'd be a lot more valuable than that and Benty is just one goal behind him and Rooney in the hit parade so maybe it's not as silly a price as it first seems. Villa are buying themselves maybe 10-12 goals between now and the end of the season which their current strikers don't look like scoring between them. If that results in them staying up, and I think it will do, then he's paid back his transfer fee in spades.
As others have said, I suspect DB has reasons other then strictly financial for this move...but the signing on fee must be nice too.
well, Konc is already there with Jonjo, Thomas may be on His way.....
Anyone else see a pattern emerging here ?
;-)
Didn't O'Neil leave because they wouldn't spend enough?
Good luck Benty.
Would be nice if we saw some of it but seems very unlikely.
Bent's been right off form lately and it seems clear now that he's been saving himself for the move south...
Hero to zero in one stroke of the pen...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/s/sunderland/9364778.stm
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The London-born star, who began his professional career at Ipswich and also played for Charlton, said: "Aston Villa is a massive football club.
"As soon as I knew they were interested in signing me I wanted to join. The size of the club and its history are major reasons for me coming here.
"There are some top, top players here too, real quality, and I've been able to speak to the manager and the owner about their ambitions for the club. I'm very excited about being a part of what we hope to achieve."
***********************************************************************************************************
Come on Darren don't insult our intelligence. Sunderland are 6th in the table. They are also a big club with passionate support and their board have ambitions for the club. Villa are in the bottom three, have a dodgy squad and a miserable bunch of supporters who continue to believe that somehow that are more massive a club than their recent history would suggest. Why would you leave other than for the money?
I think there is a fair amount of media spin on that story. Turning down a contract to move to charlton, well quite a few players are running down their contracts to move on, turned down west ham to go to spurs - well why not, even then spurs looked more likely to develop upwards than west ham and spurs to sunderland, ok he got caught out by the phenomenon known as twitter as has Kevin Peterson, Ryan babel etc,.
i think it is only media driven controversy, nothing in it really.
I don't think you can criticise him from moving to Spurs instead of West Ham. Surely he made what he thought was the better choice.
Not criticising him for anything. I posted a link to a BBC article which makes some interesting points.
But from what I remember there was some diifficulty when he left Charlton. I think we shook hands on a deal with West Ham and he refused to go, which didn't please our board at the time -or something like that ? Bent held out for something better - and he got it. So fair enough.
Not sure why Kevin Phillips - who people on here were suggesting yesterday would be a good signing for us - is putting the boot into DB. You don't often find current players attacking their professional bretheren like that, so I wonder what is behind it?
Charlton - Spurs. Crazy fee. We were never going to keep him.
Spurs - Sunderland. Harry treated him like shit. Who can blame him for sounding off?
Sunderland - Villa. Odd one. Probably more to it.
Money.
Unfair. Wet Spam were offering Bent a LOT more than Spuds in the summer of 2007 but he preferred to go to Spurs because they were the better choice football wise.
I find it hard to believe that this move is solely about money given that Villa under Lerner are pulling their belts in tighter than ever, it is more likely that he has had enough of being in the North East and wants to come back to civilisation. Or a bit closer at least!
My incorrect use of language. I should have said "I don't think one should criticise him....." Apologies :-)
Villa have far better players IMO and won't be in the position they are for long. Good luck Benty, you won't find me saying a bad word against you.
It's all about the money.
Imagine his signing fee....
MONEY!
True, Villa have some brilliant young players there and if they can get a few older heads in and get rid of the wasters like Carew then they will be on the up again.
I believe that he has been unhappy for some time. Wasn't there a bid from overseas for him in the summer that the Mackems rejected or did I dream that?
Maybe he hasn't settled. He claims that when he went to Spurs it was for footballing reasons and not for the money because he could have gone to Wet Spam for more. We have only got his word for that. Wet Spam offered more transfer money but were their personal terms better?
I wish him well. I hope he goes on to play regularly for England. I just think it is mainly about money. I don't begrudge him that, I just wish he could say that.