Bent "play me or i'm off"

[crazyteknohed]

Off you go then, son.

Shit, you said Bent, not Bentley

 

[nowayjose]

He is a pretty good goalscorer, and handy to have in the team, but the writing was on the wall when both defoe and keane was bought back. He definitely wont be here come next season. Im sure he will score som important goals between now and he leaves, and i will wish him good luck when that time comes.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

I have no problem with Bent's attitude or application. He has behaved like a pro and whenever called upon he has come on and got on with doing his best.

But just looking at his goal tally is too simplistic. Jol, Ramos and even Redknapp know this. I'm not sure I would have wanted Bent in my side even in the eighties, but now, more than ever a striker must have better team skills than Bent has to offer.
It's staggering that a player with such poor technique has made it to this level.

Football has evolved, Bent is a caveman who is fairly good with his bludgeon in a time when the rest of the species is starting to use uzi's.

 

[Bobishism]

if he wants to play, fair enough. it's more than his stature for him to try and hold this club to randsome.

 

[sendô]

Should've come to West Ham when he had the chance. I'd happily see him up front for us. Very capable player with a good games to goal ratio wherever he has played.

I for one was amazed when he sign for Charlton for something paultry like £2m that no other clubs wanted him.

Seems to have been the victim of circumstance at spurs - he couldn't get in in front of Berbatov and Keane (and Defoe) which shot his confidence (which he seems to rely on more than anything) and as such always looks like he's expecting to fail, even when he's still scoring.

 

[worcestersauce]

If I was number four striker and the club sells the other three telling me this is my chance to become number one, the club then buys a Russian and I'm number two, it then gets a new manager who brings back two of the originals making me number four again even though I am top scorer in the league I can assure everyone that I would say a fuck site more than "play me or I'm off".

I'd have had my bags packed day one after Defoe came back and told the manager to stick his team up his posh south coast arsehole and don't bother speaking to me again because I ain't listening.

And yet there are people on this site that seem to want to abuse Bent despite the professional integrity he's shown until now, pratts!

Fuck off is right, he should tell us to Fuck off:evil:

 

[Kendall]

I have no problem with Bent's attitude or application. He has behaved like a pro and whenever called upon he has come on and got on with doing his best.

But just looking at his goal tally is too simplistic. Jol, Ramos and even Redknapp know this. I'm not sure I would have wanted Bent in my side even in the eighties, but now, more than ever a striker must have better team skills than Bent has to offer.
It's staggering that a player with such poor technique has made it to this level.

Football has evolved, Bent is a caveman who is fairly good with his bludgeon in a time when the rest of the species is starting to use uzi's.

Me and thee disagree on Bent but I have no problem with what you say here. Whilst some of us may not rate him as a player, he has surely done enough to earn our respect and therefore some of the responses in this thread are disgusting.

The same people will whinge about Berbatov or Keane's betrayal but when there is a player working hard and doing a job to try and help this club (regardless of whether he's better or not) they give him no respect or are actively abusive.

 

[duffster]

Taxi!!

 

[dannythomas]

While you can understand his frustrations I think going public with those kind of comments pretty much seals his departure in the summer. Whether you agree with him or not the reality is that clearly Redknapp does not rate him otherwise he would not have bought Defoe and Keane. So unless HR himself goes I don't see what future he has with us.

 

[SpursMad]

It is unfortunate for Bent that he doesn't seem to be rated highly and he is certainly down pecking order of strikers. My problem with Bent is he seems to lack a football brain (i.e. his runs are very direct and seemingly without purpose) and his touch resembles that of a donkey. The ball bounces a few yards in front of him on occasions.

It would probably be best to allow him to move on for the sake of his career. But like some of you have said. Who do we bring in as a replacement? Or do we need a replacement and let Dos Santos finally settle in as a striker?

 

[SpurSince57]

some of the posts on this thread are laughable to say the least. 14 goals in 30 odd games is a record not to be sniffed at. He's a striker and at the end of the day his job is to put the ball in the back of the net, not to run around like a headless chicken for 90 mins. Funny how 2 of the leading scorers in the PL are strikers who are accused of being lazy and not appreciated at there respective clubs (Anelka & Bent). Given him the chances and more often than not he puts them away. I wish someone could pull out a stat, SS57 get it sorted, of shots on goal to goals scored ratio as I'm pretty certain Bent would be VERY high up on that list!

It's slightly better than one in four, which makes him by a short head the best in the league at the moment (Agbonlahor was on one in three at one time but has slipped back). By way of comparison, Defoe's conversion rate is slightly better than one in seven, and Pav's a frankly pisspoor 1 in 10. Bent's also created 14 attempts, which is nothing to scream about, but marginally better than Defoe's 12 and Pav's five. And if the Hudd hadn't been taking shooting lessons from Zokora he'd have at least one more actual assist.

Now I think B-C makes a good point in that it's debatable whether an out-and-out poacher has a place in the modern game, and I'll again post the link to Jonathan Wilson's Guardian article on the topic (just to prove that not all Guardian sports journos write total crap).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/jan/22/the-question-jonathan-wilson-goalpoachers

On the other hand I'd disagree that playing Bent means we have to lump long balls forward for him to chase—Modric for one is more than capable of slipping a through ball to feet when Bent's playing off the shoulder. We saw an example of that in the friendly against Celtic, and if Boruc hadn't been very smartly off his line that would have been another goal. Unfortunately, we haven't seen it tried in the league too often. If you're arguing that deep-sitting defences make it very difficult to play that game, yes, they do—but see Wilson's comment about Anelka's goals; only two have been Chelsea's first in a game (and one of those was as big a fluke as Bent's against Villa). The other 12 have all come when the opposition has been chasing.

Anyway, he's got plenty of time to make a case for himself between now and the end of the season. We need goals to get us up the table, and I wouldn't be over-reliant on Pav to get them.

 

[sunnydelight786]

It's slightly better than one in four, which makes him by a short head the best in the league at the moment (Agbonlahor was on one in three at one time but has slipped back). By way of comparison, Defoe's conversion rate is slightly better than one in seven, and Pav's a frankly pisspoor 1 in 10. Bent's also created 14 attempts, which is nothing to scream about, but marginally better than Defoe's 12 and Pav's five. And if the Hudd hadn't been taking shooting lessons from Zokora he'd have at least one more actual assist.

Now I think B-C makes a good point in that it's debatable whether an out-and-out poacher has a place in the modern game, and I'll again post the link to Jonathan Wilson's Guardian article on the topic (just to prove that not all Guardian sports journos write total crap).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/jan/22/the-question-jonathan-wilson-goalpoachers

On the other hand I'd disagree that playing Bent means we have to lump long balls forward for him to chase—Modric for one is more than capable of slipping a through ball to feet when Bent's playing off the shoulder. We saw an example of that in the friendly against Celtic, and if Boruc hadn't been very smartly off his line that would have been another goal. Unfortunately, we haven't seen it tried in the league too often. If you're arguing that deep-sitting defences make it very difficult to play that game, yes, they do—but see Wilson's comment about Anelka's goals; only two have been Chelsea's first in a game (and one of those was as big a fluke as Bent's against Villa). The other 12 have all come when the opposition has been chasing.

Anyway, he's got plenty of time to make a case for himself between now and the end of the season. We need goals to get us up the table, and I wouldn't be over-reliant on Pav to get them.

Thanx for that, I k new you would not let me down....:grin:

Those stats pretty much backed up what I said in my original post, but people will still moan. Give the boy chances and more often than not he will stick them away. The thing is we have not been creating many chances this season hence his goal tally is quite stunning considering that.

My guess is that he will be off in the summer. Who wants a bet that he will end up at Villa and this time next year will be in the England squad aswell as banging them away for them. People will then moan why did we ever get rid of him:roll:

 

[doubledecker]

It's slightly better than one in four, which makes him by a short head the best in the league at the moment (Agbonlahor was on one in three at one time but has slipped back). By way of comparison, Defoe's conversion rate is slightly better than one in seven, and Pav's a frankly pisspoor 1 in 10. Bent's also created 14 attempts, which is nothing to scream about, but marginally better than Defoe's 12 and Pav's five. And if the Hudd hadn't been taking shooting lessons from Zokora he'd have at least one more actual assist.

Now I think B-C makes a good point in that it's debatable whether an out-and-out poacher has a place in the modern game, and I'll again post the link to Jonathan Wilson's Guardian article on the topic (just to prove that not all Guardian sports journos write total crap).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/jan/22/the-question-jonathan-wilson-goalpoachers

On the other hand I'd disagree that playing Bent means we have to lump long balls forward for him to chase—Modric for one is more than capable of slipping a through ball to feet when Bent's playing off the shoulder. We saw an example of that in the friendly against Celtic, and if Boruc hadn't been very smartly off his line that would have been another goal. Unfortunately, we haven't seen it tried in the league too often. If you're arguing that deep-sitting defences make it very difficult to play that game, yes, they do—but see Wilson's comment about Anelka's goals; only two have been Chelsea's first in a game (and one of those was as big a fluke as Bent's against Villa). The other 12 have all come when the opposition has been chasing.

Anyway, he's got plenty of time to make a case for himself between now and the end of the season. We need goals to get us up the table, and I wouldn't be over-reliant on Pav to get them.

Would you leave out Pav and play Bent with Keane or leave out Keane and play him with Pav ? Or leave them both out and play Bent on his own ?

 

[sunnydelight786]

With the luxury now of having 5 strikers we can mix and match them so that we have the right combination for the required opposition...

 

[tony0379]

barring the miss against pompey the bloke aint done much wrong

 

[Spurger King]

If I was number four striker and the club sells the other three telling me this is my chance to become number one, the club then buys a Russian and I'm number two, it then gets a new manager who brings back two of the originals making me number four again even though I am top scorer in the league I can assure everyone that I would say a fuck site more than "play me or I'm off".

I'd have had my bags packed day one after Defoe came back and told the manager to stick his team up his posh south coast arsehole and don't bother speaking to me again because I ain't listening.

And yet there are people on this site that seem to want to abuse Bent despite the professional integrity he's shown until now, pratts!

Fuck off is right, he should tell us to Fuck off:evil:

Completely agree with this. Apparently Bent was signed because Comolli anticipated Defoe leaving, which he did, but not until January, by which time Bent was firmly pushed aside.

Remember when he came out and said he wanted to stay and make a go of it with us during the Summer? His attitude has been fantastic, and yet he's been treated with no respect at all by Spurs, and by sections of our fans.

I think he should and will go. Partly because I personally feel Pav, Defoe and Keane are better players in general, and all create much more than he does, but also because he doesn't deserve the treatment he's received, and could fit in perfectly at another club.

Although I feel that our other strikers are better, thats not the same as not respecting Bent, or his important contribution to date.

Fingers crossed he'll get the winner at Wembley so we all have something positive to remember him by. :grin:

 

[camaj]

I do feel a little sorry for him, he is though the epitome of our season, completely inconsistent :-|

He hasn't scored when he hasn't started and generally scored when he has, even when the rest of the team were awful.

As much as I love Keano, he doesn't get enough goals and I feel Pav doesn't either and Defoe certainly doesn't. If we can get the ball to Bent he'll score, but so many times I've seen him in a great position and not passed to. He would have burried that chance Modric missed, it was far easier than the one Bent missed. Then again the mistake was not passing to Keane in the first place.

 

[walworthyid]

I like his attitude and he seems like a really nice and down to earth lad! BUT, he is not the right kind of striker for us and so..................

Good luck in the future!

 

[bergsuk]

It would seem that Bent is incapable of forming a partnership with anyone, to me he isnt a footballer he's an old fashioned finisher. unortunately the modern game requires more from each player, his touch is poor, his passing not upto scratch and his link up play non existent, i dont mean to slag him off as i was one of the people that was glad we signed him, i liked the look of him but he hasnt or cannot adapt to our style of football, at charlton he was upfront on his own for most of the time chasing hoofed balls which worked for him, with us we play a more passing game (or try to) and he doesnt seem to know where to run or makes the same runs as our other forwards, no doubt he knows where the net is but he cant bloody get to it! its frustrating

 

[Mullers]

“All I can do is keep working as hard as possible and grab every opportunity I get. Because any manager in the world will like you if you put the ball in the net.”[/FONT]

Darren it's time for you to go. The manager does not appreciate you and the majority of fans do not appreciate you. You scored a hat trick and fans chanted Defoe's name. You are the top scorer but the fans treat you like a arsenal player, then bleat about a lack of loyalty from Keane and Berbatov.

The fans who say you are not good enough then list players such as Jason Roberts, Kevin Davies and Bobby Zamora just to name a few are deluded.
They have deluded visions of grandeur. We are not a side challenging for fifth, sixth or seventh place we are a relegation threatened club. Finishing 13th is going to be considered a good season. Next year the likelyhood is we will not be in Europe, so having four quality strikers will be a waste of time.

We are going to be a transitional mediocre club for five years+ and its unlikely we qualify for Europe for a very long time indeed. So we will lose our best players anyway. Get out of this sinking club fast and go to Villa or Everton. I think Villa would be best for you. Champions leagues football beats sitting on the bench for a relegation club.

Thanks for the goals :up: