Sell Bent?

[Ad@m]

It’s impossible to prove how much the “without” statistics would improve with an extra 20m spent on the team, but I think it is fair to say that they would.

I think you're beyond ambitious if you think we'd get £20m for Bent at the current time.  £10m is probably closer to what anyone would be willing to pay and you can't get much of a replacement for that.

[Risso]

Sell our 20 goal a season striker. No chance. We need to concentrate on how to supply him. End of chat.

It's a discussion, not a chat. There should be no 'end' to this. FACT! (sic)

Apologies Legion. Was slightly wound up after a bad day at work.

I just don't understand why we're discussing selling our £18m pound striker.  He has a proven track record of scoring, given the service.

Because there are other strikers out there who might possibly be just as good at scoring, but who have a better all round game?

Can you name a striker within our reach with a goalscoring record comparable to Rooney and Drogba?

Probably but, but then I'd never heard of Demba Ba or Cisse before hand either.

[Dante Lavelli]

It’s impossible to prove how much the “without” statistics would improve with an extra 20m spent on the team, but I think it is fair to say that they would.

I think you're beyond ambitious if you think we'd get £20m for Bent at the current time.  £10m is probably closer to what anyone would be willing to pay and you can't get much of a replacement for that.

You’re almost certainly right there, I pretty much plucked a nice round number in order to question the validity of the statistics previously posted.

The current value of Bent is a big reason to justify not selling Bent right now.  I personally condone selling Bent on the basis that his transfer money could give us/lambert more freedom to create the team’s style however, it might be wise to sell him in January (or next summer) when he’d fetch a better price.

[PeterWithesShin]

You really think Bent is worth 4 or 5 mill less than Fletcher?

[Risso]

You really think Bent is worth 4 or 5 mill less than Fletcher?

You've got to factor in the O'Neill factor. We'd probably get £15m off Spurs for Bent, or £26m off Sunderland.

[Ad@m]

Some of it is about momentum too.

Fletcher has just come off the back of a very good season whereas Bent has spent the last eight months watching from the stand.

And as we know all too well, MON will through silly money at anyone.

[LeeB]

Darren Bent is not the problem.

The tosspots playing just behind him are the problem.

[PeterWithesShin]

Some of it is about momentum too.

Fletcher has just come off the back of a very good season whereas Bent has spent the last eight months watching from the stand.

And as we know all too well, MON will through silly money at anyone.

And despite that Fletcher scored a massive 3 more goals than Bent last season.

Even allowing for the MON factor, if both players were sold in the next week Bent would not go for less money than Fletcher. Although it doesn't really matter as i'd be stunned if we sold Bent this summer.

[Dave]

I'm still not sure where (even if someone were in favour of selling Bent) who they are planning on selling him to.

I can't see him going abroad and in the Premier League they only teams I could realistically see him signing for would be Liverpool or QPR. And I can't imagine either of them writing us a cheque for £20m any time soon.

[SoccerHQ]

I think Bent has to be one of the great "what if" signings of recent times.

What if we'd signed him in 08/09 (around the time of the infamous Sandra Redknapp comment) We signed Heskey instead.

What if we'd signed him for 10m in summer 2009 especially as we signed Downing for 12m who was crocked and was shite anyway when he did play that season.

I'm convinced he would've fired us into the champions league one of those seasons as the way we played under MON with crosses being fired in all the time would've been perfect for his game.

Instead we sign him fighting relegation and with our creative wide players about to leave.

He'll still score goals this season just as he did last but it won't be as good as if we'd sign him in 2009.

[Holte L2]

I think Bent has to be one of the great "what if" signings of recent times.

What if we'd signed him in 08/09 (around the time of the infamous Sandra Redknapp comment) We signed Heskey instead.

What if we'd signed him for 10m in summer 2009 especially as we signed Downing for 12m who was crocked and was shite anyway when he did play that season.

I'm convinced he would've fired us into the champions league one of those seasons as the way we played under MON with crosses being fired in all the time would've been perfect for his game.

Instead we sign him fighting relegation and with our creative wide players about to leave.

He'll still score goals this season just as he did last but it won't be as good as if we'd sign him in 2009.

I was desperate for us to sign him that season.  He was the missing link. 

[TonyD]

Not sure Bent will ever score 20 a season with us.  Just a gut feel.  Might be better to sell a reinvest.

[Rob92]

If we can't fit Bent into our style of play he's made pretty much redundant up front on his own. You could could count on one hand the touches of the ball he got at West Ham on Saturday. However, if he was playing for someone else and we were looking for a striker, we'd all be wishing for Bent to sign, but we'd also know that we wouldn't be able to afford him. It's a hard one.

[Drummond]

No, No and bloody well NO.

We can't seriously consider selling our most expensive and arguably best player. He's a proven goalscorer and better than most English strikers and arguably any in the Premier League, his scoring record suggests that anyway.

We just need to allow our new style of football to come to fruition and all that passing just needs to make it a little further forward for him to bang them in.

We have desperately needed a centre forward that can score for years, to want to sell the best one we've had would be ludicrous.

[LeeB]

No, No and bloody well NO.

We can't seriously consider selling our most expensive and arguably best player. He's a proven goalscorer and better than most English strikers and arguably any in the Premier League, his scoring record suggests that anyway.

We just need to allow our new style of football to come to fruition and all that passing just needs to make it a little further forward for him to bang them in.

We have desperately needed a centre forward that can score for years, to want to sell the best one we've had would be ludicrous.

Finally, some sense.

Darren Bent will score a lot of goals this season, of that I'm convinced.