No Gray Areas - Bent to inspire Aston Villa
Aston Villa's signing of Darren Bent was the big news this week after Gerard Houllier managed to prise away Sunderland's star asset for a fee in the region of £18 million. It has sparked the old debate of whether players become far more expensive in the transfer market just because they happen to be English.
It does seem to be the case that homegrown players are worth a few bob more than foreign imports, especially if they're also established internationals, but there are two good reasons for that.
The first is that with the recently introduced regulations concerning a minimum number of home-grown players, English lads become a more valuable commodity. The second is that I think most fans like to see high-profile nationals playing in their side.
If you go and ask a Real Madrid or Juventus fan if they want to see Spanish and Italian players respectively play for their club, I'm pretty sure I know what their answer would be.
But irrespective of his nationality, I don't think Bent's transfer fee is excessive. Look at his goalscoring record over the past five years or so and of those players still playing in the Premier League, only Wayne Rooney and Didier Drogba can claim to have a better one.
I've said before that Darren isn't necessarily easy on the eye, his finishes tend to be scuffed efforts that hit the goalkeeper or the upright before they trickle in rather than clean strikes. But we can't all be Cristiano Ronaldo or David Villa and find the top corner every other game and it's how many goals a striker scores that matters, not how they're scored.
His winner against Manchester City was typical of everything Darren does well. He sensed that Joe Hart could only parry Ashley Young' shot and was the first to react to the rebound, smashing it past the City keeper. It's that sort of predatory instinct that Villa have lacked over the last couple of years and it's a great feeling for all the Villa players knowing that Bent will make the most of any scraps going and start turning Vila's chances into goals.
All in all, the signing of the former Spurs man is a huge boost for Aston Villa. Things have been a little quiet of late at Villa Park and his arrival will give a huge boost to the other players and of course, the fans.
Emile Heskey has been a good servant for Villa for the last few years and still offers a strong physical presence but he hasn't been scoring enough goals whilst the same can be said of John Carew, who has now been loaned to Stoke.
One thing is for sure, Bent will certainly get more chances to score goals at Villa than he did at Sunderland. That's not a criticism of the Black Cats, who have had a superb season so far, it's just a reflection of the way they play - normally quite narrow with a rather direct approach - Villa play a little wider and have great crossers of the ball in guys like Stewart Downing and Ashley Young and I think Darren will enjoy getting on the end of those balls.
Villa have had a bad time of it of late and injuries certainly haven't helped their cause but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a sharp change in their fortunes with the arrival of Darren and a steady rise up the table in the next few weeks.
Andy Gray is now on Twitter so follow him for his exclusive tips and his take on the biggest stories in football each week.
Published: 24 Jan 2011
Steve Mosey (January 23, 2011 1:17 PM) said:
'a rather direct approach'? What utter drival! Did you see the Chelsea match?