Darren Bent

[Legion]

Bent should stay. Your poll questions are illiterate.

[hawkeye]

I tell you what, a Darren Bent in the Swansea team today would have had a field day.

Don't sell, look to play to his strengths.

I tell you what, a Darren Bent in the Swansea team today would have had a field day.

Don't sell, look to play to his strengths.

Is the correct answer, really wish people would get of his case, he had terrible service today.

You can not just blame the service, Swansea sat deep so reducing the space he has to run into, he made only 1 diagonal run today, he never tried to spin into the chanel, his hold up play is awful so he has to make more use of his pace by running into space and pulling his marker with him if he cant do that then you are left with a redundant striker that is easliy marked out of the game.

[KRS]

I agree we should keep him but 15 corners isn't exactly terrible service. Bent made nothing out of the corners today, and wasn't exactly moving around making life difficult for Swansea's defense. He has got to work harder.

Worth noting that none of the other 9 players managed to make anything of the corners either, so they were defended properly (like our defense seems incapable of doing) or the quality of the corner wasnt that great. Either way, in 90 minutes of football we should be looking to get more than 1 shot on goal and creating chances for Bent in open play regardless of how many corners we have.

[Toronto Villa]

How's does selling an outstanding goalscorer solve anything? We should be building a squad capable of servicing him properly whatever system the manager decides to play. We knew what we were getting when we bought him. It's now our task to give him what he needs to do what he does best. The repercussions of selling our star player would go way beyond the sale itself. That's the very last thing we need right now.

[MarkM]

McLiesh has said that he needs to sell to buy, the money we could get from the likes of Heskey, Warnock etc... Is not going to fund the team building we need.

The only really valuable assets we have are Bent and Gabby, if the board don't come up with some investment money our future looks pretty mediocre.

We could end up like we did under Graham Turner

[old man villa fan]

I tell you what, a Darren Bent in the Swansea team today would have had a field day.

Don't sell, look to play to his strengths.

I tell you what, a Darren Bent in the Swansea team today would have had a field day.

Don't sell, look to play to his strengths.

Is the correct answer, really wish people would get of his case, he had terrible service today.

I agree we should keep him but 15 corners isn't exactly terrible service. Bent made nothing out of the corners today, and wasn't exactly moving around making life difficult for Swansea's defense. He has got to work harder.

Our corners are always looking for Dunne, Collins or Cuellar if he is playing and are so predictable.  Bent is generally only there for knock-downs.

For players that are supposedly good in the air we have not been getting a good return from corners or free-kicks for over 18 months.

[Jimmy Smash]

Perspectives need to be adjusted. I don't think that in the current climate we are going to be able to keep Bent sweet by buying the type of players he wants to play with. In fact we sold most of 'em, so the idea of building a team around him is kind of redundant.

[Phil from the upper holte]

I tell you what, a Darren Bent in the Swansea team today would have had a field day.

Don't sell, look to play to his strengths.

I tell you what, a Darren Bent in the Swansea team today would have had a field day.

Don't sell, look to play to his strengths.

Is the correct answer, really wish people would get of his case, he had terrible service today.

I agree we should keep him but 15 corners isn't exactly terrible service. Bent made nothing out of the corners today, and wasn't exactly moving around making life difficult for Swansea's defense. He has got to work harder.

We had a lot of corners but the delivery was shocking. I do agree he has to work harder but we should not sell or even think about it ever!!

[PaulWinch again]

If you think that teams like Sunderland and Charlton have got him scoring lots of goals in the Premier League, it is an indictment of us that we make it so hard for him. He's still got a good goal scoring record for us, but he's feeding off scraps. We should be getting a team to supply him with chances, and I'm sure we already have several players who can do that. Ireland and N'Zog interact well and I think if we got the players moving off the ball we could play well.

[SoccerHQ]

I've said before we signed him at the wrong time...when we're on the decline.

Why oh why didn't MON sign him? With Young's crosses and us playing 4-4-2 and two wide players, he would've been perfect in our team and probably fired us into the champions league for one season.

Given Sunderland signed him for around 10m, he wasn't even that expensive for an MON british buy, instead we sign Downing on one leg who then fcuks off when the going gets tough.

His overall goal record for us is 15 goals in about 33 league games isn't it, so nearly 1 in 2 which is comparable to any villa striker we've had in the last 10 years.

Yes he could be better at certain things but he isn't the problem.

[villadelph]

I posted this in the Post-Match but figured it might be more valuable here, my take..

Bent doesn't move. He just doesn't. He can only check back for the ball in the middle of the park with his back to goal, in which 99% of the time will result in a backwards pass. He incapable of turning around a defender, or taking a touch into space and going forward. He is useless when is comes to tracking back and closing down markers, and has little vision for the pass when going forward.

That being said, don't sell him off. N'Zogbia, Albrighton, Gabby and Ireland are more than enough to get him goals. He needs to work harder and get himself in to better positions so can see more chances. McLeish has no idea how to work around Bent, or how to create a supply line. Losing a goal threat and a man who a manager must point out before the match to his defense would be a big blow to Villa. Regardless if the man can only score a tap in, it's a quality we need on our team. Moreover, I don't trust McLeish with the funds that would come in return. He's got a poor track record in January and I don't want all the former to become to current. Stephen Ireland can become the CM we've been "shopping" for.

Darren Bent needs to increase his productivity, while I see little hope for McLeish. Home record says it all for me, they/we don't want you here and it'll be hard luck to change that. Great bloke but below average manager. You're in over your head mate.

[Jimmy Smash]

I've said before we signed him at the wrong time...when we're on the decline.

Why oh why didn't MON sign him?

Being the ace manager he is, he'd have probably played him at right back.

[Steve kirk]

Keep Bent for this season as I am sure he will score us some vital goals in the big games to come. I am sure he will be off in the summer though.   

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

Two goals and a lot of our threats against Chelsea came through the middle of the park, not the wings, which a lot on here seem to be obsessed with. Variety and options are the way forward, not the utterly predictable crap, (massively over-hit crosses to no-one - again!) or just plain random crap, that we seem to be serving up game after game.
A good coach (Rodgers/Jol/Martinez) gets his teams playing to a system that all buy into.
As my son said today: " Do the Villa players train together or on their own?"
Said it all for me!

[hawkeye]

I've said before we signed him at the wrong time...when we're on the decline.

Why oh why didn't MON sign him? With Young's crosses and us playing 4-4-2 and two wide players, he would've been perfect in our team and probably fired us into the champions league for one season.

Given Sunderland signed him for around 10m, he wasn't even that expensive for an MON british buy, instead we sign Downing on one leg who then fcuks off when the going gets tough.

His overall goal record for us is 15 goals in about 33 league games isn't it, so nearly 1 in 2 which is comparable to any villa striker we've had in the last 10 years.

Yes he could be better at certain things but he isn't the problem.

You are spot on, what might have been? Now we are left with a set up that does not look capable of getting the best out of him and a player that is not working that hard to impress.