Breaking News: Bent Signs

[The Man With A Stick]

So ugly his Mother used to feed him by catapult.

Biggest laugh of the day there.

[damon loves JT]

You have to be pissing Ferguson off before you can start to feel good about yourself.

[Nev]

Holloway better enjoy his five minutes in the spotlight, he'll be gone soon.

[KevinGage]

  No one was supporting us when Yorke said he wanted to leave and Manure made it public including how they wouldn't be held to ransom on the price.  This happens all the time in football and yet I can't remember so much vitriol being hurled in the direction of the so called villainous purchasing club in all my life.

Aye.

Fergiescum brazenly saying in print "the boy wants to come here" and all the rest of it was perfectly OK.  As he did with Saha and countless others.

Re Bent:

If Sunderland are as big a club as Mackems seem to believe now, and if it was wages and wages alone that made Bent trade massive Sunderland for life at VP, why not match the offer?

£70k is a lot, but by mental football wages almost normal for one of your better players. We pay Ash in excess of £65k a week and even Ivanhoe £60k + per week.

If he was that important to them they'd surely find a way of giving an England international parity with his peers.

Might be hard for them to grasp, but maybe he just wanted out of the North East, a chance to catch Capello's eye more often and the chance to play at a bigger club with better players.

What a rotter, fully deserving of death threats for that.

[Blackcountry Villa]

I hope we sing something better than 'One Darren Bent' on saturday. We should sing his name to the tune Arsenal use for Nasri:

'Darren Darren Bent, Darren Bent
Darren Darren Bent
Na na na na na na na na na na....'

[Pete3206]

Bruce should be taking Niall Quinn to task about the snapping Learner's hand off for the cash, not blaming everyone else. Seems to me that Quinn received a cheeky enquiry and Learner called his bluff by stumping up the cash immediately. Sunderland should be glad that Villa didn't do what clubs like Man U, Man City and Liverpool do by unsettling a player for weeks then making a series of derisory offers until the inevitable compromise is reached.

[PaulWinch again]

Bruce should stop whining, he got a very good fee for a player who wanted to leave.

[pablopicasso_10]

its a shame that all of this deflecting the criticism from sunderland, and the media trying to dig upwards after they claimed we had no money, has taken the gloss off a really fantastic bit of business for us...

me, im still smiling, and absolutely delighted, despite all the hypocricy and stupidity from sunderland and the media...

[kippaxvilla2]

I'm not going to even post the article Ive just read on newsnow it's that poor.  But it's yet another angle on Liverpool buying Ashley Young saying he is available but only for £25m and that there has been an indication that the Bent deal was only sanctioned if we sold the likes of Young in the window.  What part of 'Downing and Young are not for sale in this window' do they not actually understand. 

[cheltenhamlion]

Well they can't possibly be wrong about us being skint can they now.

[alanclare]

Gerard Houllier defends his conduct over Bent transfer

BBC Sport Article

[midnite]

Cheer up Stevie Bruce
Oh what can it mean
To a, sad Mackem bastard
with no, Bent in his teaaam.

[Rancid custard]

I didn't think this deserved its own thread, but Bent made a comment on MOTD last night that got me thinking. Along the lines of the service he'd get from Young, Downing and Gabby. I'd speculate  a few things - he's thinking he'll get a lot more goal scoring chances and noticed, I mean Capello seems to watch us every week and  the shape of things to come football wise.Has Houllier told him about his attacking master plan and the dynasty he's looking to build. The wishful thinker optimist in me also wants to think a statement like that means he knows that Young, Downing etc aren't going anywhere to offset the financial burden of buying him.

[Blackcountry Villa]

'Ole ole, ole ole, Darren Bent Bent Bent'

Just no. One, it's Dunne's song. Two, it's shit.

It should be the same tune as Arsenal sing for Nasri, the 'baby give it up' tune. Our away fans are more spontaneous and creative so hopefully we'll come up with something better at Wigan. You could tell after he scored nobody knew what to sing for him for a few minutes.

[supertom]

That was a million paid back by Dazza! Exactly the sort of finish we want, and the sort of forward we've been missing.