Last year Sunderland hit a wall around this time and went something like 11 without a win - may well happen again and even though well ahead on points it's still perfectly possible to finish above them this season- as bent said villa are a massive club!
Quote from: Merv on January 19, 2011, 09:20:20 AMYes, I was going to post myself and point that out: Bruce is the epitome of the manager who jumps ship at the whiff of a better offer. It's a bit rich laying into one of his players for seizing the chance of a move. Bottom line is, Bent obviously wasn't happy at Sunderland. I don't believe it was about money: if it was, interest from another club would have been the perfect opportunity for his agent to negotiate a pay rise. If he was happy to stay at the club, of course.Morning lads, SAFC supporter here. No axe to grind, no bitching to be done - after all - it's a cracking bit of business for us. The bit in bold above is wrong I'm afraid - it was about the money. Asked for a rise at the start of the season and didn't get it. If you're happy to pay him the reported £80k pw fair do's, but it's a massive amount of money to spending on one player over 4 years - in excess of £40m if my sums are right. Anyway a couple of bits of info for you - DB is a very sensitive soul who reacts badly to criticism - check out his Twitter account if you like - DB11TT - took the hump because we commented on one of our message boards (readytogo.net) about all of the chances he's missed in the last few games and it appears he loves to be Top Dog - form suffered once Gyan and Welbeck started performing. Don't believe the bullshit about 'loving the place', the people being 'fantastic' and wanting to stay with you for 'a long time' either. Anyway, good luck for the rest of the season.
Yes, I was going to post myself and point that out: Bruce is the epitome of the manager who jumps ship at the whiff of a better offer. It's a bit rich laying into one of his players for seizing the chance of a move. Bottom line is, Bent obviously wasn't happy at Sunderland. I don't believe it was about money: if it was, interest from another club would have been the perfect opportunity for his agent to negotiate a pay rise. If he was happy to stay at the club, of course.
Darren Bent at £24m is mad, but more fun than common senseLast updated at 2:21 PM on 19th January 2011There is one problem with common sense in football. It doesn't get you any points. Never has, never will. Nobody has ever taken common sense on an open bus tour around town or paraded it before the fans on the final day of the season. Common sense with a touch of madness, yes. Common sense with breaking the British transfer record three times in succession, as Manchester United did, or gambling like Arsenal on expensive Serie A cast-offs such as Dennis Bergkamp, Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry, most certainly. Yet common sense solo is never enough. Supporters do not feverishly fantasise about a new owner with bags of logic. Bags of money are what they want. Harry Redknapp, the Tottenham Hotspur manager got it right. If Saddam Hussein had spent half his ill-gotten fortune on buying a decent striker for a club in fear of relegation, he could have put up that giant self-aggrandising statue outside the ground and nobody would have torn it down.'Most people die of a creeping common sense,' wrote Oscar Wilde, and Aston Villa's season certainly has. Villa tried common sense in the summer months, and now what? It is ironic that while some were wittering on about the noble desire to rebuild the club through youth, Randy Lerner, the owner, was preparing to pay £24million for Darren Bent in the fevered hope he will score the goals to lift his club away from the bottom three. 'Age and guile beat youth, innocence and a bad haircut,' claimed PJ O'Rourke, and overspending on proven Premier League goalscorer Bent certainly beats prudence and relegation in football's modern era. In every season there is always one transfer that stuns with its extravagance and this is it. Indeed, some might argue this is Bent's second time around, having also moved from Charlton Athletic to Tottenham for £16.5m in 2007. That deal was viewed as over-priced in retrospect, however, once Bent had failed to impress in north London. Initially, his 31 goals in 68 league games for Charlton meant Bent's fee was considered the going rate. For it to have increased by roughly 50 per cent after a decent 18 months at Sunderland is what startles, but this is what happens when common sense reveals its limitations. Off the field, successful football is a balancing act. It is a trade-off between good business practice and the degree of risk that is required to succeed. On the field it is not so different. A team has to be solidly set up to keep the ball, while being prepared to gamble on the killer pass that creates a goal, but might also give possession away. No team ever scored without the ball, is the maxim, but equally no team has ever won a match without putting it in an area that risks a counter-attack. This summer, Aston Villa decided that they did not want to risk anymore. Lerner, a decent guy whose stewardship was envied by supporters of clubs whose American owners had morphed into damn Yankees, thought he had spent enough to get the club to sixth place and the investment required to advance on the Champions League could no longer be justified. He could spend another £50m without guarantee of success. Recouping some of his outlay by selling Gareth Barry and James Milner to Manchester City, Lerner ushered in a new era of fiscal responsibility, which lasted roughly six months. Lerner got the balance wrong, you see. He thought Villa could stand still and remain competitive on a diet of youthful promise and sound economics. Martin O'Neill considered these aims impractical and left. Gerard Houllier happily accepted the challenge, but his team has struggled.Nobody stands still in the Premier League and when players know a club is at the limit of its ambitions, they go backwards, too. Villa have been outstripped by Bolton Wanderers, Stoke City, even Sunderland, now forced to give up one of their prized assets. It will cost Villa £24m to get back a semblance of what they had in the first place. Is Bent worth £24m? No. Yet in a climate in which relegation costs £30m and instant promotion would be far from guaranteed, his signing makes business sense to Lerner. He has to gamble because logic - stay as you are and Villa will slowly pull away from the bottom three because they have a superior squad - is getting him nowhere. Yet buying Bent is a huge risk. The last time he went to a high profile club for big money, he seemed cowed by the experience and there is a theory that he is best as a big fish in smaller pools, as happened at Ipswich Town, Charlton and Sunderland. Put under the spotlight, as he will be now, he wilts. There is certainly belief within the England international set-up that Bent's unfortunate run of injuries when called up to the squad may be an adverse reaction to pressure.Is he the man for the big occasion? Is he right for Aston Villa? This very much depends on how one regards the strain of Villa's fight against relegation. If Bent gets a good start, he undoubtedly has the talent to shoot his new club out of trouble; if he stalls, however, the intensity will mount, the numbers will be a burden, and Houllier cannot afford his man to be crushed by expectation. As for Lerner, this will have been an education. A successful football club must embrace common sense, but madness, too. The trick is to not to allow too much of either. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1348409/MARTIN-SAMUEL-Darren-Bent-24m-mad-fun-common-sense.html#ixzz1BUsOQNPm
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Topic: Breaking News: Bent Signs (Read 353088 times)
