In the second season of the Paul Lambert era, it felt the right time to reflect back on a significant part of the club’s recent history – the situation regarding the club’s record signing, Darren Bent.
It is less than two and half years ago that Aston Villa were parading a man who was to cost £24m – a figure that blew any other transfer fee spent by the club out of the water.
However, as we approach the start of the 2013/14 season, the same man is facing a cut-price move to the likes of Newcastle United or Fulham, with Villa lucky if they can make £5m back. So where did it all go wrong?
Make no doubt about it, at the time of signing, Bent was exactly what the club needed. Under Gerard Houllier, the supply line was there, but the missing link was the goal scorer, someone to tap it in when the ball came across – and when it comes to that role, nobody plays it better than Bent.
Few could argue that £24m was, and is, a fee that was inflated. As we all know, January windows have two common themes – desperation and overpaying – and one only need look at the £50m paid for Fernando Torres to understand both concepts.
However, when set against the cost of relegation, £24m was the lesser-of-two-evils. Which then leads many on to question why it was that Bent ended up on the bench – how can a record signing, so key to survival in one season, be the forgotten man less than two years hence?
One thing that signalled the end of Bent’s prolific scoring was the sale of the supply line. Fast forward mere months from the signing of Bent, and both Ashley Young and Stewart Downing were sold. Their replacements – if one even can say there were replacement – didn’t play the same way or at the same level. Young and Downing or Brett Holman and Marc Albrighton? Quite.
So, as a result, we saw Bent have a fairly poor campaign, framed within a second season of Villa struggling. Not only had the prime focus on Bent become far easier to attack, the delivery of Holman and Albrighton were not at the same level of their predecessors. Add the two together, and the resulting situation isn’t hard to explain.
Move closer to the present day, and Paul Lambert’s appearance at the club seemed to point to either new beginning for Bent, or a final nail in the coffin.
Things started with the chance for Bent to prove himself as Lambert handed him the captaincy. If ever there was a chance to make a mark, Bent had it. What happened following, however, seemed less than acceptable.
As captain, Lambert didn’t see enough from the club’s number nine, expecting more in terms of leadership, more in terms of effort, and more in terms of a captain.
From there, it was explained that the effort wasn’t enough to keep the captaincy – a point that seemed to cause a reaction, albeit the wrong one.
Instead, what we saw was a diminishing of effort to the point that Lambert felt Bent wasn’t good value – at £110k a week, it is hard to argue against our manager’s view. Frame that against an era of restraint in wages, and Bent was the odd man out, replaced as he was by a man on less than a quarter of his salary.
Had his replacement been a quarter as good, there could have been an argument for value, but Christian Benteke appeared to illustrate that you could buy a younger, more rounded, cheaper player, pay him far less and still succeed. From then on, there was no reason for Bent to come back.
Which, in short, explains why Bent has been pushed on to the bench. The argument that he should stay at the club because he is our record signing is as foolish an idea as saying that one should keep a Ferrari just because it cost a fortune despite it ruining your wider life – sometimes one has to understand when to cut their losses.
If Villa do manage to get £5m for Darren Bent, and he leaves for a club paying less than his current salary, I would expect any disparity between his contract and that of his new club to be paid for by Villa. If he loses £40k a week, expect to pay up that amount in full.
Which, when viewed in the context of his whole career at the club, leaves Bent as probably the most expensive player to be at the club – not only is he the record signing, he got paid £90k a week when he first signed, received a £5m signing fee, got a £20k a week bonus when Villa stayed up, and may well take most of any fee received in compensation.
Some may argue that Villa’s move to pay less money is too strict, too far, and that the gamble – and a gamble it is – on young players may well backfire. However, with the view that Bent, just one player in a team, could well have a total cost of over £40m – and maybe closer to £50m on his exit – seems to illustrate just how a man who once fit the bill is now the sacrificial lamb to save costs.
Will Bent do well at his new club if and when he leaves? Yes, for sure, if the team decide to set up around him. However, and this may shock some, I don’t think he will go on to win anything in his career as any team setting up around one player – Bent or not – will always be hamstrung by the limitations of such a tactic.
Instead, Villa look to focus around a more flexible team, presumably with longer term loftier ambitions than just to take the most money and run. With that in mind, surely Lambert will be exonerated if Bent does leave, even if there is a frustration that, in the eyes of some, a £24m man never got a fair chance at the club.
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