After a busy schedule of fixtures in the last week of January, a number of headlines reached out and grabbed us all – Djibril Cisse scoring on his debut, a mad Everton fan handcuffing himself to the goalpost, Manchester City continuing their long losing streak at Goodison Park. Lest we forget, this all took place amidst Transfer Deadline Day, a very popular date on every football fan’s calendar. Lurking around in the background of all the headlines was Aston Villa striker Darren Bent – the prolific forward’s strike against QPR on Wednesday night was his 100th Premier League goal.
Now, the 100 Club is quite an elite group. Only 22 players form this fraternity (Bent’s position included in this), when you consider that the top flight has been in its current form for neary 20 years that’s only a very small number. Bent can now count himself alongside genuine top flight greats such as Thierry Henry, Alan Shearer and Ryan Giggs. It’s testament to the career of a player who has made a habit of scoring goals, whichever team he’s played in. And at the age of 27 (28 on Monday), you feel that the striker might well be entering his peak years.
Bent started his career at Ipswich Town, rising swiftly through the club’s youth system. He made his first team debut in 2001 and went on to play for the club in a successful four-year spell which culminated in 48 goals in only 122 appearances. From there he joined Charlton Athletic for a fee of £2.5million, it was at the Valley where Bent started to really find his feet – scoring 31 goals in only 68 league appearances.
A highly impressive goals-to-games ratio which earned him a big-money move to Tottenham Hotspur, £16.5 million to be exact, in the summer of 2007. He stayed at White Hart Lane for two years but struggled to settle, his price tag seemingly affecting his goal-scoring knack. At the start of the 2009-10 season Bent joined up with Steve Bruce at Sunderland and rediscovered his midas touch, netting 24 goals in that particular campaign. Controversially, when things seemed to be going so well for him in the North East, the striker packed his bags halfway through the 2010-11 season and joined Aston Villa in a £24 million deal, the club at which he remains.
A pretty impressive career thus far, no doubt about it. He’s played games, he’s scored goals, he’s successfully negotiated the Championship-to-Premier League step-up too, something which a number of strikers have struggled to manage. His imperious form in recent years has also earned him a permanent place in England’s starting line-up and last year Bent found his feet on the international stage, scoring three goals in his last six appearances. You feel that he will be very much part of Fabio Cappello’s plans for next summer’s Euros. He’d be a fool to ignore him.
Darren Bent has all the important attributes necessary to make a successful top-flight striker – pace, touch, awareness, movement, predatory instincts. He has utilised them to the full in his ten-year career and he is still improving (like I said, peak years beckon). He is a deserving member of the illustrious 100 Club but one more question remains – why haven’t bigger clubs been sniffing around the striker? His quality remains for all to see and he boasts an impressive totalling CV. Will he see out the full four-and-a-half years of his Villa contract? If the goals continue to flood in don’t bet against a poach from the likes of Chelsea or Arsenal in the summer.
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