N'Zogbia

[PeterWithesShin]

Just because Benteke was better than Bent doesn't mean Bent was shit. That's like saying Mellberg was shit because McGrath was better. Bent was a great goalscorer, but not a great footballer. It's that simple to me.

[pauliewalnuts]

Just because Benteke was better than Bent doesn't mean Bent was shit. That's like saying Mellberg was shit because McGrath was better. Bent was a great goalscorer, but not a great footballer. It's that simple to me.

Bent was one of the best players I've ever seen at beating the offside - he had an uncanny ability to move at just the right time.

He wasn't a great footballer, but like you say, he was a great goalscorer.

[curiousorange]

If there has been a striker we've had in the Premier League who you wanted in a one on one situation, it was Darren Bent.

As a forward, Benteke had it all. One of my favourite moments was his goal against Chelsea (when he got sent off for a challenge with Terry). I was in the Holte upper, and he waltzed past three defenders like they weren't there.

But yeah, back on point, Bent was a lethal finisher. What might have been in that 2008-9 side.

[Villa in Denmark]

Completely missing the point with the Bent v Benteke value for money thing.

We paid top whack for Bent to buy guaranteed goals to keep up us, which he did.  In the 2 half seasons he was fit he won us enough games to keep us safe 2 seasons running.  Worth every penny of the £18M  And whatever Allan C says, he was scoring at not much over 1 in 2 up to the point he was injured.  That his overall record ended up closer to 1 ion 3 just shows how much that injury f¤¤ked him.

We paid a hefty fee for Benteke in what was either a one of piece of scouting brilliance from Lamber and the brains trust, or we got lucky.  £7M for a relatively unknown youngster from a minor European league was a huge gamble.  It didn't even pan out the way Lambert thought it would.  Go back and listen to some of the interviews when he's getting it in the neck about not playing Bent.

He'd bought Benteke to be the target man / foil for Bent.  He was Heskey's replacement, not Bent's, but it was soon obvious, even in the ca, 200 minutes they played together that that wasn't going to work, but that Benteke could do the lot on his own and open up for a different approach all together.  At that point Bent was consigned to keeping Hutton company and any chance of getting a fee disappeared to a pipe dream.

And yes Mr E. Anyone who thinks Lambert's first 2 years were the worst Villa team ever should maybe have a look around.  There's one thing in bending the facts, or taking an obtuse view of statistics to support an argument.  Completely ignoring the biggest steaming pile of shit to fall on B6 in 30 years to score a point is something else.

Villa in Denmark, a simple question, given the choice, would you choose Bent or Benteke?? All other managers since Bent' s transfer have suffered because of it IMO. The 18 million plus should have been spent better IMO

Christ, this is like root canal treatment without anaesthetic.

There isn't a choice to be made between Bent and Benteke. You couldn't have signed Benteke for £7M in January 2011 and expected the same results we got from signing Bent.

The more pertinent question, if you're so against the signing of Bent, how would you have used the £25M plus that was spent in January 2011 to keep us up.

Clean sheet. No need to spend loan fees on Walker and Bradley, no need to spend the £7M on Makoun if I remember rightly and free reign to bring in any striker you like from around the world.  Take the squad we'd got on 31st December 2010 and spend the money on it in a way that us staying up was credible and not involving Darren Bent, but you'll have to use his fee as the benchmark. As I've already said, that fee was inflated, as is usual in January, by the position we were in (desperate) and the position Sunderland were in (don't want or need to sell, but reliant on his goals.). We'd have got screwed wherever we went shopping.

[Ads]

Signing Darren Bent was the last time we acted like the big club we are.

[edgysatsuma89]

I'd take the anaesthetic VID and not bother waking up for a bit.

[b23]

Out of contract 30.6.16

About 50 days.

Like Ben Arfa, he's sure to resurrect his career elsewhere.

Flowerpot man.

[Villa in Denmark]

Out of contract 30.6.16

About 50 days.

Like Ben Arfa, he's sure to resurrect his career elsewhere.

Flowerpot man.

During which time he'll have received another £420,000!

[Mellin]

Nice birthday present that'll be. I'll assign a pint to it in celebration.

[Ian.]

Out of contract 30.6.16

About 50 days.

Like Ben Arfa, he's sure to resurrect his career elsewhere.

Flowerpot man.

During which time he'll have received another £420,000!

Wanker! We've been trying to juggle cash tonight to pay off my mechanic and boiler man.
Different world isn't it.

When my folfs left the Midlands in 83 for a new job, better house etc, we had Wolves players on our little estate in Bushbury. Can you imagine these players today having to live in Wimpy style houses.

[sid1964]

I would not be surprised that in the mad world of premiership footballers contracts, if NZogbia was not entitled to a loyalty bonus at the end of his 5 year contract with us!

[martin o`who??]

Is whom exactly??......

[john e]

I would not be surprised that in the mad world of premiership footballers contracts, if NZogbia was not entitled to a loyalty bonus at the end of his 5 year contract with us!

In fairness he had been loyal

[SoccerHQ]

The justification for buying Bent was that he enabled us to avoid relegation.  Through no fault of his own he has now become a waste of money - we eventually got relegated anyways.

You could argue that we would have been better off getting relegated during Houllier's season. It's not got any easier to get promoted to the PL and hopefully we'd have been back up by now.

In the last 5 years we have spent a shedload of money, seen maybe half a dozen really good games and have stunk the PL out with increasing degrees of pungency. Does it really make any difference how good Darren Bent was ?

The justification for buying Bent was that he enabled us to avoid relegation.  Through no fault of his own he has now become a waste of money - we eventually got relegated anyways.

You could argue that we would have been better off getting relegated during Houllier's season. It's not got any easier to get promoted to the PL and hopefully we'd have been back up by now.

In the last 5 years we have spent a shedload of money, seen maybe half a dozen really good games and have stunk the PL out with increasing degrees of pungency. Does it really make any difference how good Darren Bent was ?

The irony of that is that Bent should've been purchased for far more than a relegation battle...he should've been that prolific scorer to take us into the top 4. Can never understand why O'Neill never made a move in his 4 years for him, he would've suited the style of play well.

Short term Bent was good but long term selling Young and Downing within weeks was the beginning of the end of his effectiveness here and he just became another expensive player we couldn't shift and eventually let go for nothing. Much like N'zogbia.

[SoccerHQ]

Signing Darren Bent was the last time we acted like the big club we are.

Pretty much. I was buzzing the night we signed him, we were having a poor season and Lerner was justifiably getting stick for the botched managerial search after MON walked out  but that signing lead me to wrongly think he hadn't given up, it was just a poor few months and we'd be back fighting for top 6 soon enough. What he then did the following summer shattered that vision.