should we really be spending £24million on one player??

[JUAN PABLO]

I hope Doug's ticker  was alright when he heard the Bent news...   ;-)     

[olaftab]

YES

[Ads]

Should we be spending £24 million on Bent? After all, we could have bought McGeady and Keane for £24million.

Argument won.

[garyfouroaks]

It's the price of fish.

Relegation would cost us £46m , his goals pretty much guarantee that wont happen now.Yet i fancy that Makoun could turn out to be good value.

[Gazza1982]

Its definately a yes from me.Not just that his goals have effectively kept us up, but we now have a forward we can believe in again, a forward who when he gets the ball you think, we got a chance here. You know he is going to get 20 a season and with that,it breeds confidence throughout the team.
Ironically enough,just as we finally get a proven goal scorer after so many years, last seasons reliable defence suddenly falls to pieces.

[ozzjim]

Most important signing we have made since Lerner came in, and easily repaid the fee already.

[ROBBO]

Look how twoi of the players Spam bought in on loan, that we were heavily linked with, have fared. One missed an absolute sitter at the weekend the other has been woefull at full back. Buying other clubs rejects seldom pays off.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

A timely revival of an old thread. Looking back the majority backed the signing at the time but there are always a few doom merchants.
For example:-

£24m - all seems a bit desperate to me. May end in tears - still relegated and no money left.

I know its been a horrible season and we crawled over the line but when we are 100% mathematically safe we should have a cruel thread quoting all the really over the top merchants of doom during the season.

[Gazza1982]

Two against the Arse and an inevitable hatrick againsy Liverpool and the debate is well and truly over. We do need someone else up there however, if Bent picks up an injury for 5/6 games we don't want to be a one trick pony.

[brontebilly]

Considering the state of our finances if the Bent move had not worked out and we went down, then the club truly could have been facing a Leeds.

The gamble paid off thankfully but of course the Villa board would have to be questioned re the state of the club accounts and an awful managerial appointment.

Things should be better on the finance front with big earners exiting and with a new manager on board things will improve on the playing front too.

In light of the Carroll, Torres, Suarez signings Bent is great value at that price. He will outscore the three of them next season I reckon.

[brontebilly]

Look how twoi of the players Spam bought in on loan, that we were heavily linked with, have fared. One missed an absolute sitter at the weekend the other has been woefull at full back. Buying other clubs rejects seldom pays off.

Bit selective there, Demba Ba scored seven goals. The buying other club rejects has been disproved countless times. Diego Forlan comes to mind straight off.

[olaftab]

Its definately a yes from me.

Good timing Gazza. Do you normally wait for rain to start and than tell people it's wet outside?

[SoccerHQ]

I can't believe MON didn't sign him.

If he'd done it in 2009 when he went to Sunderland I reckon we'd have nicked 4th last season so that investment would've been even more beneficial than just staying up with the european money.

In an MON team where the ball was played long a bit more and the set pieces were more effective, Bent would've scored shed loads, even more so as he'd have been playing alongisde a partner like with Jones at Sunderland who we worked well with.

[Mister E]

I can't believe MON didn't sign him.

If he'd done it in 2009 when he went to Sunderland I reckon we'd have nicked 4th last season so that investment would've been even more beneficial than just staying up with the european money.

In an MON team where the ball was played long a bit more and the set pieces were more effective, Bent would've scored shed loads, even more so as he'd have been playing alongisde a partner like with Jones at Sunderland who we worked well with.

Totally agree.

[KevinGage]

I said at the time (and I still think it holds) that it's probably wrong to assume that had ourselves and Sunderland both been in for him in 2009 he'd have automatically come here.

Yes, most neutrals would have seen us as the more attractive option. But the most important thing to him at that stage was regular first team football. Sunderland could virtually guarantee him that, ourselves with a forward triumvirate already made up of two England internationals and John Carew possibly couldn't.

Being the main man up there for 18 months ultimately benefited his career and we're reaping the rewards of that now.