After a period of underwhelming form and knowing, like we all do, what Darren Bent is and isn’t capable of, talk has come to suggest that he might be considering whether he wants to be at the club or not.
“Might” is certainly the operative word here because, as we all know, the vast majority of such opinions simply spin out of the vacuum of non-communication, given how laconic our board choose to be.
It’s what happens anywhere, no matter the sector, no matter the sport. If silence prevails for long enough, a “solution” gets created. The “solution” may not be right, or even true, but something will fill the gap of silence, regardless of if it is honest or otherwise.
I have to clarify that as we haven’t heard in any official capacity that Darren Bent is looking to leave the club. In fact, in today’s age of social media communication, which could roughly be described as technological Chinese whispers, this kind of “news” spreads fast.
Again, “news” is slightly disingenuous as a term. After all, this past week has seen news that UK singer Adele has throat cancer spread wildly across Twitter. The reality was that she may need surgery on her vocal chords for something that most definitely isn’t cancer. The truth and what is spoken by the masses are often total inverses of each other.
So If It Was Real?
For the purposes of this article, I’m going to make a few assumptions, which are defined explicitly from the outset. Imagine Darren Bent does want out, and that the owner is willing to sell him. Take some time to think about that. How does it make you feel? Sad? Happy? Indifferent?
For me personally, I have no allegiance to any individual at the club, Darren Bent or otherwise. I don’t have to defend a manager simply because he wears a claret and blue tie, and I don’t have to like players just because their pay docket says “Aston Villa FC”. To do so would be foolish, blinded by supposed loyalty in an era where playing for one club has become increasingly rare.
Players aren’t fans, and fans aren’t players, so in that sense trying to treat them the same way is largely going to end up in disappointment. Sure, some players are fans, but even that doesn’t mean they are going to cling to Aston Villa like it is a sibling, rising and falling with it out of loyalty.
Anyway, back to Bent. So if we are to assume that DB9, to use his colloquially and self appointed title, is going to leave, where to, for how much, and why? Few would be able to afford him, and those that could afford him won’t want him. Sad, but ultimately true.
Examining the Darren Bent of this season illustrates a few things.
Firstly, that Darren Bent is what he has always been – a poacher. Nobody can ever say otherwise. For his goals to games ratio, his statistics are nothing short of top class, but beyond that he does little else.
Secondly, that Bent obviously was successful last season because of other factors around him. You know. The other players. Players who supplied him selflessly and were happy to provide crosses and through balls for him to seize on. To ignore that is foolish, and it always makes me laugh that people suggest Bent somehow singlehandedly saved us from relegation last year. He didn’t.
This year, the world at Aston Villa is somewhat different. Ashley Young and Stewart Downing have gone to bigger clubs, and Nigel Reo-Coker laughed off the pay rise of £4k a week offered to him and jumped ship to Bolton.
So minus the supply, Bent will be devoid of most things – ideas, confidence, and form being the first three I can think of. Form, as they say is temporary, class is permanent.
Defending Darren
Now before anyone suggests I harbour some kind of grudge against Bent, nothing could be further from the truth. His goals last season were important, but they were served up by others who aren’t here anymore. Bent wasn’t making self-created goals and scoring them for fun. He was poaching them, and doing that well. The problem isn’t sitting solely on Bent’s shoulders, but he is certainly different nowadays.
It was hardly a shock. The idea of selling some of your best creative players, and replacing them with a smaller number of players than you sold would always carry a risk of things not working out. Whether you want to villify Downing for his acrimonious departure, or lament Young for his dream move to Manchester United, the facts remain as stark as the fact that night follows days – these people no longer play for Villa.
So get over it.
We’ve bought Charles N’Zogbia and, as I’ve said many times already, the player will come good. He obviously is a player of finite ability in the sense he is restricted to the laws of physics just as we are. A great player Charles may be, but he isn’t able to play both wings at the same time. Even Messi can’t do that.
So what can Villa do to help Bent? The reality is that to play to Bent’s strengths, Villa need to set the team up around him. This team also needs to have players and abilities that play to that sole strength and, any way up, such a reliance on one player is not a good sign.
Things happen to players as a natural consequence of life. They get injured. They lose form. They operate just like human beings do, largely because they are human, and they need to be interchangeable, they need to not be invulnerable to being benched.
If Bent was any other player operating under the same lack of form, the majority would call for him to be sat out on the bench. N’Zogbia didn’t perform as expected and was benched. Hutton stutters in terms of his current form and people are calling for him to be dropped too. Bent, however, seems to be immune to such suggestions as though he is some kind of unique entity.
The Line Between Genius & Insanity Is Very Thin
As I mentioned in another article, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Playing Bent without players that complement his game leaves you on a hiding to nothing.
This isn’t a new thing. Spurs found exactly the same issue and that’s why they shipped him out. Relying on Bent was holding them back, and they had to change things up. They did, and last season they were in the Champions League. Coincidence? I think not. Football is a team game, and it needs a team to work.
So for me it isn’t that I actually want to get rid of Darren Bent, it is simply that he is a luxury that I struggle to justify in the current era of austerity. He’s a figurehead as a player, but without the gears in the machine that supply him, he’s largely ineffectual, and at £90k a week plus bonuses, plus a £5m signing fee, he won’t have done to badly to be paid almost £200k a week pro-rata for the past year if he does go in January.
Yes, TWO HUNDRED thousand pounds. More than anyone outside of Manchester City’s madness of money spending. More than Rooney. More than Berbatov. More than Drogba. That’s some context. It also illustrates just what desperation will do to the rules and logic of cost savings. Fear certainly creates some double standards.
Knowing what we know with cost savings, the only way to make Darren get to his best like last year is to get players back that will supply him and, in the present circumstances, the midfield simply doesn’t cut it.
Why else do you think that the defence lump balls over the heads of the midfield? Perhaps because they don’t trust their ability?
To get Darren back to his best means spending money that we most likely don’t have. So, like in many difficult situations, sometimes tough choices have to be made. Maybe Darren does have to be sacrificed for Aston Villa to survive. Maybe Randy Lerner will pull some money out of nowhere and restore the waning faith in his ownership of the club.
Sometimes it is better to sell the family silver if it means you can eat tomorrow, and better to sell a luxury player if it means you can strengthen the team in other areas. Better to be alive and relatively poorer, than materialistically rich and dead.
Do Aston Villa need Darren Bent? Not specifically. All Villa need are points, regardless of where they come from. Bent’s just an employee, the same as anyone else.
January may provide difficult challenges. All we can do is hold on to the little faith we have left, and hope it doesn’t go horribly wrong.
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