Darren Bent joins Fulham on loan (Reply #486)

[dave.woodhall]

One day, in a parallel universe thousands of light years away there will be a journalist who actually realises that there is no way in the World we ever paid £24million for Darren Bent.

In that same universe, Ciaran Clarke never gets spelt that way again. Barry Bannan actually realises it his fault he isn't wanted at Villa. Stephen Ireland actually cares about anything.

And nobody will ever write to Heroes and Villians.

[eamonn]

Can't see anything wrong in Bent's comments.

Is that tweet from Gabby? He writes less clearly than he speaks. The only supposed ''goss'' on Bent I can recall being mentioned is of some alleged rift involving him, Herd and Herd's partner. Possibly rubbish. Anyway, Dazza's a married man now and he plays by the river. He'll be happy.

[Goldie.7]

Can't see anything wrong in Bent's comments.

Is that tweet from Gabby? He writes less clearly than he speaks. The only supposed ''goss'' on Bent I can recall being mentioned is of some alleged rift involving him, Herd and Herd's partner. Possibly rubbish. Anyway, Dazza's a married man now and he plays by the river. He'll be happy.

I highly doubt Gabby is on twitter. It's probably just some muppet.

[Legion]

One day, in a parallel universe thousands of light years away there will be a journalist who actually realises that there is no way in the World we ever paid £24million for Darren Bent.

In that same universe, Ciaran Clarke never gets spelt that way again. Barry Bannan actually realises it his fault he isn't wanted at Villa. Stephen Ireland actually cares about anything.

And nobody will ever write to Heroes and Villians.

You make those letters up, don't you?

[dave.woodhall]

One day, in a parallel universe thousands of light years away there will be a journalist who actually realises that there is no way in the World we ever paid £24million for Darren Bent.

In that same universe, Ciaran Clarke never gets spelt that way again. Barry Bannan actually realises it his fault he isn't wanted at Villa. Stephen Ireland actually cares about anything.

And nobody will ever write to Heroes and Villians.

You make those letters up, don't you?

No, and note the spelling.

[PaulWinch again]

I don't really have a problem with his comments. I think it's one issue that Lambert could address, if only from our business perspective. I'm not sure freezing players out and making it very obvious we don't want them is particularly conducive to helping sell them at a good price. I like Lambert a lot, but he does have some faults.

[Monty]

I can see what Bent's getting at, but we needed a really extreme transformation. The team was still basically the unwanted remnants of MON's famously canny transfer policy, followed by the disjointed collected efforts of GH and TSM. The methods may have been brutal, but this is now Lambert's team and Lambert's Villa.

[Marlon's Hairy Wood]

Can't see anything wrong in Bent's comments.

Is that tweet from Gabby? He writes less clearly than he speaks. The only supposed ''goss'' on Bent I can recall being mentioned is of some alleged rift involving him, Herd and Herd's partner. Possibly rubbish. Anyway, Dazza's a married man now and he plays by the river. He'll be happy.

I highly doubt Gabby is on twitter. It's probably just some muppet.

Nope, it is him.

He posts videos of himself or other players all the time, such as on the plane to Dublin

[Concrete John]

Benteke's style suits us better.  Bent is to expensive to keep as a reserve.  The rest is pretty much irrelevant.

[supertom]

Sometimes you have to adapt or die. Bent couldn't adapt to our way of playing. Whether he's generally acted with decorum here or not, he probably could have worked harder to fit into how our manager wanted to play. There's aspects of his game that he could have worked on to improve. There were times in games where he wasn't getting a touch and could have tried force himself upon the game a bit more. He could have worked harder in games.
Bent has been mostly professional but he's certainly not someone you'd say has worked his balls off to stay in Lambo's plans. He could conceivably have worked very well with Benteke. This time last year he was our captain too. He's had his chance. Like most of the rest of the bombers he's not done enough. Certainly not to justify the wages paid.

I know it must frustrate him and all but it's Lamberts prerogative. He came out and always made his point clear. He didn't need to molly coddle Bent, Ireland, Hutton etc on a weekly basis. Hold their hand and tell them it was going to be okay. He made his and their position clear and got on with the job at hand, working hard with his first team squad.

As Gabby says though and he has a point. There seems to be some problem that Bent has at most of his clubs. Then you compare Gabby and Bent. Before last season many might have argued that Gabby's time here had passed. Time to move on. When Lambo strolled in, most betting men thinking a year down the line as to which player out of Gabby or Bent would be turfed out, would probably have opted for Gabby. Gab works his nuts off, aside from his love of the club.

Good luck to Benty. But if he's expecting a lot of sympathy, he better not look to me. I stand by Lambert's decision. A little harsh, but why keep him with the first team squad if he's not part of the plans, if he's not gonna make the 25 man selection? Lambert has pretty much 2 players in every position. He's got to blend together all of the players who he actually wants to feature. He doesn't owe Bent, Ireland etc their fitness. They can stay fit training with the youngens. Why give pre-season match time to Bent, where it could be given to Helenius, or a youngster we might need to call upon at some point, like Grealish say. As for affecting his value, well that side of things isn't Lamberts perogative so much. He's got his budget. He's got his players to work with. A few friendly appearances won't add that much to Bents value. His wages are the main issue more than a fee we can get too.

[eastie]

@DarrenBent: really enjoying life at Fulham. just to clarify I feel some of quotes after the game on the weekend don't do what I said justice....

@DarrenBent: ...as I said on Friday the fans and those at the club at Villa have always been great with me. Looking forward to saturday's game now

[Ron Manager]

Darren is justified in having a slight moan but he has gone to the right club and will do well.

His standing with the Villa fans is still high and will continue to be so in the future.

He didnt behave like Ireland or Benteke for that matter but conducted himself in a professional manner.

[London Villan]

I still don't understand how he went from captain to been dropped from the squad altogether in the space of about 8 months... There must have been some disagreement with PL, otherwise why would have he picked him as skipper at the very beginning.

[ciggiesnbeer]

@DarrenBent: really enjoying life at Fulham. just to clarify I feel some of quotes after the game on the weekend don't do what I said justice....

@DarrenBent: ...as I said on Friday the fans and those at the club at Villa have always been great with me. Looking forward to saturday's game now

The press twist shit. Darren is fine by me. Time to move on.

[supertom]

@DarrenBent: really enjoying life at Fulham. just to clarify I feel some of quotes after the game on the weekend don't do what I said justice....

@DarrenBent: ...as I said on Friday the fans and those at the club at Villa have always been great with me. Looking forward to saturday's game now

The press twist shit. Darren is fine by me. Time to move on.

This. He's been around the block, he knows the nature of the game. He's now at a club where he'll do well. If they make the deal permanent he might find himself under a different manager than Jol at some point, and may fall out of favour again, no matter how he's done there. You can't be the right player for every manager, unless course you're Messi who I'm sure could be fit into any gaffers side anywhere around the world, unless Christiano Ronaldo is managing a side of course!