Darren Bent - worth every penny

[eamonn]

Your point 3 is too simplified. Without Bent, someone else would have been playing and no doubt contributed to the team. Yeah, probably a mixture of Fonz/Heskey/Gabby combined and they likely wouldn't have got as many goals between them but just saying.

[cheltenhamlion]

I have said it before often enough but I advocated the signing of Bent when he was still a nipper at Ipswich.

[Mazrim]

I have said it before often enough but I advocated the signing of Bent when he was still a nipper at Ipswich.

Snap.
I wanted DOL to pair him with Yakubu.
Not in a footballing sense but a homoerotic experiment.

[cheltenhamlion]

Do you know, I wrote to the club about their scouting and inability to "keep up with the Charlton's of the world" at the time. Of four I recommended, Bent was to on the list at that time. Now two were shite but top of the tree, Tim Cahill. Phil Jagielka was four I might add. This scouting the lower leagues is piss easy!

p.s. Three was Michael Tonge at Sheff Utd but three from four aint bad!

[Mazrim]

Did they reply?
I was amazed nobody snapped up Jagielka and Cahill before Everton eventually did.

[montague]

Did they reply?
I was amazed nobody snapped up Jagielka and Cahill before Everton eventually did.

Palace could have signed Cahill from Millwall when they were last in the PL - and Simon Jordan refused to deal with an agent - on principle.

[sfx412]

He's fucking brilliant. It really is as simple as that.

God only knows how things might had panned out, had O'Neill bought him when he went to Sunderland for a modest 10m.

and played him at left back you mean, assuming he got on the pitch of course.

No player bought in the last seven seasons has contributed so much to the Villa cause, and to think some on here reckoned he didn't score consistently enough

Weird also that the man who bought Carew, Routledge, and of course Harewood, is still revered by many, yet the guy who persuaded Bent to join us has often been reviled.

[glasses]

He's fucking brilliant. It really is as simple as that.

God only knows how things might had panned out, had O'Neill bought him when he went to Sunderland for a modest 10m.

and played him at left back you mean, assuming he got on the pitch of course.

No player bought in the last seven seasons has contributed so much to the Villa cause, and to think some on here reckoned he didn't score consistently enough

Ashley Young, Gareth Barry, Martin Laursen, Olof Mellberg! Even James Milner. Dont get me wrong, Bent is fantastic and im pleased to have him, but he has not been here six months.

[mallo]

Some stats from Opta Joe on twitter

1. Since August 2005, Darren Bent has scored 90 Premier League goals. Only Wayne Rooney (91) has more. Productive.

2. The three 2011 winter signings to score 7+  PL goals are D Bent, D Sturridge & D Ba. Congrats to the hundreds who got this one. Answer.

3. Without Darren Bent's goals this season Aston Villa would be second bottom with 36 points, three points from safety. Bargain.

4. Darren Bent has scored eight PL goals from just 17 shots on target since joining Aston Villa. Value.

I've had a look on the BBC website and they say 9 goals from 15 starts for us in the league, which is phenomenal. Also he's hit 20 goals for the season.

I don't really care for the why's and wherefore's - he'll be brilliant for us. I'll go as far to say he'll probably score more than Torres next season.

[garyshawsknee]

At the minute,Heskey looks like he's gonna score more than Torres.

[supertom]

If anything indicates why we need Benty, it was his first goal against Arsenal. Absolute class. There's few players who can do what he did. It's almost like a 6th sense. Just like Wrighty in days gone by. He ghosted in and without hesitation he's controlled and finished it. Even if Bent isn't technically as cultured as some players, he still gets the ball to go where he wants it...in the back of the net. Pure class.

His 2nd goal was also excellent. No pause for breath, he just slipped in and finished it. We haven't had a player like this in ages. A pure goalscorer.
I expect 20 mininum next season.

[Merv]

It was a seriously good finish, not easy at all but he took it beautifully. Bent has been superb. Nine league goals and it could have been even better - he's had a couple of marginal disallowed efforts which could just as easily have been given. And that very uncharacteristic miss v Wigan.

Watching MOTD2, the commentator at the Liverpool game made a remark about Luis Suarez along the lines of 'has there been a better signing in the January transfer window?' I thought, yes: yes, there definitely has.

[Clampy]

Weird also that the man who bought Carew, Routledge, and of course Harewood, is still revered by many, yet the guy who persuaded Bent to join us has often been reviled.

Carew was a good bit of business, and as for Houiller being reviled, we've lost 3 derbies, been in the bottom half of the table for most of the season and have in general, been pretty shit.

[pablopicasso_10]

i love darren bent...

[cheltenhamlion]

Did they reply?
I was amazed nobody snapped up Jagielka and Cahill before Everton eventually did.

I used to correspond with people at the club quite a bit but, even though I copied in Doug and the pig nosed shithead in charge, it is one of the few letters I didn't get a response to.