Bent Drags On

CHARLTON striker Darren Bent has told Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool that he will join the club which gives him the best chance of being an England regular.

Bent has already snubbed a move to West Ham United where he would have earned £75,000 a week after the two clubs had agreed a £17million fee.

Liverpool and Spurs are refusing to pay the asking price for the striker with both clubs willing to pay around the £12million mark and wages of around £35,000 a week.

Spurs are said to have guaranteed him regular first-team football while he'd have to fight for his place at Liverpool.

We've guaranteed him first tam football? I think not. Hardly the way to keep your resident forwards happy, is it? More likely the push they need to leave.

I sense something rotten in the state of Tottenham. Is Bent as good as Berbatov is the million dollar question Levy is pondering on his yacht in the South of France

You're really on a downer about this whole Berbatov thing, aren't you?

I really am. My coping tactic is prepare to be disappointed only to be delighted when he starts away at Sunderland for Tottenham. I appologise in advance if I get irritating throughout the summer months

What do you mean IF you get irritating? You're driving me mad already and we've got two whole months till the start of the season.

GDG wrote:

we've got two whole months till the start of the season.

Stop saying that!

DannyBoy wrote:

GDG wrote:

we've got two whole months till the start of the season.

Stop saying that!

I hope my prayers will be answered and one of the South African channels WILL broadcast Spurs tour starting in (ONLY)4 weeks time

I hope so.

I vaguely remember the last tour in SA being broadcast by eurosport when I was back in London.

Didnt Skitz show a lot of the matchs via some South African channel? Do other bars not have these?

West Ham are in danger of repeating the mistakes of Leeds United. Why on earth offer 17m when its well known other admirers of Bent value him around 12m ? Of course, Charlton aren't going to sanction a deal for less and I can see Levy, rightly in my opinion, refusing to budge on our best offer.

No player should be allowed to demand a first team place.

David Ornstein
Friday June 22, 2007
The Guardian


Darren Bent is expected to complete a £16m move to Tottenham within the next seven days after Charlton agreed to accept a reduced offer for their striker.
Peter Varney, Charlton's chief executive, had said Bent would remain with the club unless their £17m valuation was matched. West Ham had agreed to that figure and offered Bent a five-year contract worth about £75,000 a week but after talks and a medical was arranged the 23-year-old England forward pulled out.


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Charlton have since softened their stance and are ready to settle for £15m with a potential extra £1m in success-related payments. The biggest potential bar to the move is Liverpool's continuing search for a forward. Should they fail to land Atlético Madrid's Fernando Torres, then serious interest is anticipated, though Rafael Benítez has other options.
Charlton, despite their relegation from the Premiership last season, are not under short-term financial pressure to sell but realise Bent's departure is inevitable. They have already signed the forwards Luke Varney and Chris Iwelumo and Alan Pardew will use the funds generated from Bent's sale to bring in at least eight new players between now and the end of August, when the summer transfer window shuts. More money is likely to come in for Dennis Rommedahl, who is the subject of an offer from Rennes.

Tottenham's initial interest in Bent was lodged in January and they have asked to be kept updated since. Alan Curbishley, the West Ham and former Charlton manager, was also keen on Bent, having signed him from Ipswich two years ago, and will be dismayed that Charlton have now lowered their asking price to see the transfer speeded up. West Ham had offered cash plus Hayden Mullins for Bent but there will be no makeweight players in the Tottenham deal.

Bent's snub to West Ham will become all the more acute when he accepts a contract within the wage structure at White Hart Lane, where Robbie Keane is the top earner on an estimated £50,000 a week. The move will, however, cast doubt over the future of Jermain Defoe.

One figure at Charlton said he believed the deal would be profitable for Tottenham in the long run. "The main reason we think Darren has such a high value is because he has just turned 23," said the Charlton source. "In four years' time do you think for one minute transfer fees will have gone down with all the TV money coming in? He will be 27 and one of the top English centre-forwards. He's going to be worth at least £20m.

15 Mil? Gaah.

I like the fact we are keeping our fixed wage structure though.

15m. Maybe Jason is right - with the extra TV money entering the game we could be set for a new round of transfer inflation, in which case come the end of the summer 15m may be regarded a bargain.

Fair play to Bent. Turning down 75k per week and accepting our wage structure. You can argue its still a lot of money but few of us would turn down a 50% increase. Lucas Neill was one such player who went for money rather than join a bigger club.

As he is just 23 his value should hold/rise during the duration of his contract. Sensible purchase.

I guess. But for 3rd/4th striker? Will he be happy on the bench? Hard enough keeping 1 of our strikers on the bench let alone two. And to be honest I'm not a massive fan of rotation policies with strikers, surely its best to keep the same front two so they can develop a good partnership as we saw with Keane n Berby.

I tend to agree with your views on rotation policy. However, what's the solution ? Are we saying just keep two quality strikers and a couple of 'adequate backups' who won't rock the boat playing second fiddle ? I don't have the statistics in front of me but I recall Keane, Defoe and Berbatov all scored + 17/18 goals last season. Defoe played a lot of football despite spending most of the season coming on for the last 20 minutes. A good run in 3 cup competitions ensures players do get opportunities to have a run out and maintain harmony within the squad.

Besides, it would be highly unlikely for either Keane or Berbatov not to suffer an injury at some point during the season.

When all said and done I think Spurs have pursued Bent because they already know Defoe won't sign a new package and thus are forced to sell.

15M. Aren't there any other better option?

Today is not 31 August....

Don't quote me on this, but wouldnt 15 mil break our transfer record?

I mean, really, Darren Bent?

DannyBoy wrote:

Don't quote me on this, but wouldnt 15 mil break our transfer record?

I mean, really, Darren Bent?

If our transfer record belongs to Darren Bent, it will be very embarrassing.

Look at the owners of the record before Berbatov, Rebov (ok ok, but when we first signed him he was the dog's).

I think this piece from Jim at Topspurs sums up my feelings about Darren Bent perfectly.....

http://www.topspurs.com/newsnow/jmdview220607.htm


15m? Please tell me it's not true.

Apparently it is true, Eric. Mad, but true.

It should, of course, be put in to perspective - all the Premier League clubs have so much more money with this latest TV package that they've ever had before that things were bound to be daft.

Yeah not so daft if we can cover the cost with Defoe. My preference without a doubt would be to keep Defoe although as he has yet to sign it may already be on the cards that he is ex spurs

Ezza that article is spot on.

If I had to choose between Defoe or Bent I'd probably lean towards Bent. Lets not forget, Bent has scored plenty of goals in the last 2-3 seasons for a struggling side. Defoe was a first team regular, in fact the star player in 2004, who hasn't built on his early promise.

He is so damn lazy. Nowadays his goals tend to be unspectactular. Im afraid I remember him more for his failure to convert chances or for getting caught offside. The miss against Chelsea, which lets face it would have wrapped up the game and probably have got us a FA cup final against Man Utd was typical of Defoe in past two years.

I'm not saying he is a bad player, but compared to Bent I'd opt for the latter.

I also agree with GDG and Hairy - clubs have got richer. Remember, Charlton accepted 17m for Bent so 15m is kind of getting him on the cheap. We could be selling Mido for 6m. Man City are also about to throw silly cash about. 15m for a 23yrs striker who has scored +20 goals in the past 3 seasons isn't crazy.