Aston Villa News 24/7When you drop a club record £18m on a player during any window, but especially in January, there will inevitably be a lot of opinions voiced and a few feathers ruffled. I’ve read a lot of ill-conceived nonsense that I won’t dignify by linking to, but it’s fair to say that outside of Villa circles the reaction has been decidedly mixed.
For example, watching the opinion rolling by my screen on Twitter, I happened to spot a Man City fan scoffing at the £24m fee (it’s always the highest amount, not the initial fee, isn’t it?) in comparison to what they paid for David Silva. He probably couldn’t even begin to comprehend that his club are one of the key players in inflating the market to ridiculous levels, leaving the rest of us trying to swim in their wake.
Is Bent worth £24m, or even £18m? No, of course not, but I’ve written extensively about the fallacy of players’ worth and getting hung up on comparisons with other deals however similar they might appear. The fact is, when clubs like City are willing to indulge in transactions that value James Milner at £26m, for instance, there will be consequences left behind. This is one of them.
It’s the very epitome of irony to see a City fan criticising the size of any transfer.
Europe vs Relegation
The majority of negative views seem to focus around the relative positions of Sunderland and Aston Villa in the table at this moment in time. It’s left many observers scratching their heads. Why leave a club on the up to join a club heading in the other direction?
This season, just this season. The fact that Villa were nine places superior to Sunderland on average during the last three seasons and the fact that Villa racked up 186 points to Sunderland’s 119 along the way count for nothing. They’re in the hunt for Europe now and we’re fighting relegation. That’s now, right now in January, with 15 or 16 games left to play.
It might be extremely unlikely, but it’s entirely possible that we may yet finish above Sunderland. I imagine it would be quite the narrative if that were to happen, especially if we were to rob them of their assumed place in Europe in the process.
Wouldn’t it be ironic?
Martin O’Neill
And of course there has been much talk of Martin O’Neill and what he might have done with the money, forgetting that we have a four year record that gives us a very good clue. A record, by the way, which could have included the purchase of Darren Bent for about £10m in 2009, but sadly does not.
That’s the type of point that is frequently used to disingenuously attack a manager’s transfer record because it assumes that they were even interested, but in Bent’s case it’s widely claimed that we were interested when he was at Tottenham, but found the price tag a little salty.
Of course, by the time Bent left Tottenham for Sunderland, Martin O’Neill had already long since secured the services of Emile Heskey.
Something, something, 10,000 spoons.
The club go on the defence
More irony; after being particularly poor on the pitch defensively so far this season, the club itself have acted quickly to defend themselves and player against what they see as besmirchment from Sunderland Football Club.
In this video from Kildare TV you can watch Niall Quinn suggest that Bent has not been himself for the last few weeks, the implication being that Aston Villa are guilty of tapping the player up. He failed to mention that Bent expressed a desire to leave Sunderland last summer.
The club have understandably responded to this and Steve Bruce quite firmly:-
We understand Sunderland Football Club’s need to explain to their naturally disappointed supporters why Darren Bent has been allowed to leave their club.
It is disappointing, however, that Sunderland should try to besmirch the reputation of the player and Aston Villa Football Club in the process.
We wish to make clear that at no time did Aston Villa make an inappropriate approach to the player or unfairly compromise the business of Sunderland Football Club.
Darren only became aware of his possible transfer AFTER Sunderland’s game against Newcastle on Sunday and AFTER we had agreed with Sunderland the essence of the deal which led quickly to Darren’s arrival at Villa Park on Tuesday.
It is only because of some comments emanating from the Stadium of Light that we have felt compelled to respond and set the record straight.
Finances
The financial element discussed in the video above is very interesting though. Sunderland are still paying Tottenham the transfer fee that took Bent to Sunderland and only received “about a quarter” of the £24m fee we will eventually pay for him yesterday. Quinn doesn’t mention it, but I believe that Tottenham will be entitled to a share of the “profits” of the Bent sale as part of a sell-on clause.
In the end then, Tottenham won’t come out much worse than the £16.5m they paid Charlton for Darren Bent – a transaction which caused considerable mirth at the time – and because of the way transfer fees are amortized in the accounts, they may even end up in the black on the whole saga. From an accounting perspective anyway.
Sunderland fans
I don’t want to criticize Sunderland fans particularly, we of all people should understand their pain after the sequential exits of Gareth Barry and James Milner. It may seem brazen to suggest, but they might be grateful that it was extremely quick and they are receiving a ludicrous amount of money after all.
It could have gone a lot, lot worse and been an awful lot more painful. As Villa fans, we know from first hand experience, but their sense of pain and betrayal will be very real and they’ll be prone to say things about Darren Bent and Aston Villa that they probably don’t really mean.
I happened to notice a Sunderland blogger apparently taking great delight in spotting spooky similarities between what Bent said when he joined Sunderland what he said last night in the Villa Park press conference. It was standard stuff; great history, big club, great fans, brilliant players, superb manager, etc., etc. Frankly, I’d be more impressed if he could find a player that didn’t cite all those things when they joined a new club, what else are they supposed to say?
Looking forward, not back
Ultimately, our critics will use whatever sticks they like to beat us with over this deal, it’s irrelevant. All that matters is that our club have finally thrown some serious resources into bringing an out and out striker to our club and I’m quite confident that he’ll not only play a key part in survival this season, but far greater success in seasons to come.
Of course, Bent’s arrival does signal the future exit of other players, both in terms of position and finances. John Carew has had one foot out the door for a little while now, quite possibly placed in the Hawthorns, and he’ll surely be on his way before too long.
Without the additional European games, we’re also going to struggle to get the two younger strikers, Nathan Delfouneso and Andreas Wiemann, on the pitch so it’s no surprise to learn that Andreas Wiemann has joined Watford on loan until the end of the season.
Wiemann has emerged as something of a dark horse talent this season and his unfortunate injury in Vienna was a tragic set back, a loan move like this is excellent news and we’ll keep a keen eye on how he progresses there this season.
But with Wiemann out on loan and Carew the likeliest to leave permanently, we’re still left with the exciting attacking line up of Gabby, Bent, Heskey and Delfouneso supported by the likes of Young, Downing, Albrighton and Bannan.
Now, if there still aren’t goals coming, I don’t know what it will take, but no Alanis Morissette, it will not be bloody ironic!
[Please note: I've used the word 'irony' in some places here when 'hypocrisy' might be more accurate. That was deliberate]
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35 Comments to “Some thoughts on the Bent transfer, irony, Villa on the defence and Weimann heads out on loan”
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Great piece of writing Dan. It still baffles me how there are so few people commenting on your excellent posts. The detail, thought and intelligence that you put into them deserves a wider audience.
Good work. Onward
Love Randy’s Fickle Nan
that’s extremely kind, nan. thank you.
in fairness, i don’t write in a style that encourages comments and i’m trying to be mindful of that lately (i’m still learning this game), but while i’d never want to dissuade anyone from commenting, i’ve never wanted to run forum style blog.
the people that do comment here are always interesting and thought provoking which is always welcome. it frequently gives me material for future posts too!
don’t worry about the fickleness, i won’t tell anyone that you still have a MON poster on your wall!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/philmcnulty/2011/01/bent_spearheads_new_houllier_e.html
i like phil mcnulty a lot, he’s always extremely balanced and pragmatic in his views and paces his posts perfectly.
he’s a good follow on twitter. how are you finding twitter btw, nan?
The shuffle of players both in and out will be interesting. I notice that you didn’t even mention Mr. Ireland in your attacking line-up! What is to become of him?
Option1: get sold on in the Summer (but to whom?)
Option 2: Ireland sees the light and the Bent acquisition re-ignites his desire to work. GH has proven with Dunne that the door does swing both ways.
Option3: Rot in the reserves or join his ex-teamate in Cardiff on loan?
What kind of lineup would you expect with Bent in the team? Gabby & Bent in a 4-4-2 or possibly Heskey and Bent in a 4-2-3-1, benching Gabby who havent been himself this season?
I really like Gabby but I dont think he have played as well as he should have been, although I think it would be a shame to bench him – you never know when he’ll become his own self again.
Also, do you think it is likely that we will lose Downing? That would be a shamen, if that’s the case. He’s been brilliant this season!
personally, i think houllier’s willingness to put gabby out wide left to get himself a more creative player in the middle of the ’3′ in a 4-2-3-1 in stewart downing suggests that’s the system he prefers.
he could have gone with a regular 4-4-2, but didn’t. i’m not entirely convinced by gabby out wide left, but it does give him space to stretch his legs and if he can cut in on his right foot if he can get the hang of it.
i’d say he wants to use the 8 attacking players i mentioned above in rotation in the 4 attacking positions in a 4-3-2-1.
ooops, good spot.
don’t know the answer, his value must have plummeted, but it’s wooden dollars anyway. problem is, as always, huge pay packet that no one wants to match.
and we can’t blame MON for that one.
I have always been willing to back GH after a transfer window, It was always going to be tough with a new manager and old players, especially one with a different philosophy to Martin O’Neill. Now we see his first window, and I think that’s 3 positive signings, a defender, a midfielder and a striker – isn’t that what we all wanted?
The test for GH is now that he has spent some money, is to start to get results, and eventually results playing his brand of football.
If there is one thing to note about this whole Bent saga, Villa have finally quashed the rubbish that it is a selling club, if i hear that one more time…
Good points and you sum it up well, as per usual Dan.
I’m trying not to be negative about the Bent signing, as I think it’s just the ticket, but I’m finding myself wondering why we’ve not pushed the boat out for a proven striker before now.
As fans, we’ve all been saying it’s needed for ages.
Hence I have to the same conclusion as many neutrals have been saying, in that it’s a deperation thing.
Whatever, I’m confident he’ll get goals, so will try and push that thought to the back of my mind.
As for the Man City fan’s comment, I actually read a Chelsea fan say a similar thing!
Now that’s bloody Irony, as they were the fools that started it!
I got quite wound up about that one
Rumours abound of another very decent signing, so things maybe looking up.
As for GH, well, given that he’s had some MAJORbacking, he is much more likely to keep us up now, thank god.
Badger,
I think the “why now” question is down to a mix of Randy getting a better understanding of what it takes to win in the EPL. I also think that it is due to differences in MON and GH’s approach to the transfer market.
My guess, and just my guess, is that MON took the approach of “I need more money just trust me and I’ll get the players we need”. I get this from the various comments that Villa would pay 30 million or more for one player “if” the right person came along. It never happened under MON so I have to guess that either he never presented such a player, prefering to acquire multiple players that he could mould, or was unable to get a player like Bent to jump ship and come over to AV. GH on the other hand (again, my guess) possibly presented RL a “business plan” that said in order to get to the CL here are the things I need. We can all fill in the blanks as to the types of players missing in the squad but my guess is that he said that we need a top-flight striker and it will require AV to set a new transfer record. GH also clearly is able to entice these types of players to come to AV. All in all it looks like Randy bought-off on the “plan”.
Again as to why didn’t this happen before? Look at our signings. We’ve now brought in a foreigner with CL experience, a young loanee from Spurs, and a proven striker. Heck, we even tried to get a stiker from the MLS (a Jamaican no less)! So aside from the possibility that RL has learned a thing or two about winning in this league, I don’t think any of our transfers could have been possible under MON. Makoun isn’t currently in the EPL so he would not have been on the radar. MON had a chance at Bent and either passed or couldn’t convince him to come (considering that we were on the way up in the table at the time and we are now in a relegation fight, this alone says quite a bit about the difference in ability of GH and MON to draw top-flight players). Finally, Walker is a prototypical MON player but MON didn’t take in loanee’s. Assuing GH can actually manage a team, the future is bright mate!
Oh for an edit option
That’ll teach me to read before I post.
Oh well, hopefully you get the gist.
Hi Dan,
Sunderland fan here in peace, I like Villa, my best mate happens to be a Villa so I do keep an eye out for them. Obviously the recent transfer of Bent to Villa has caused huge controvesy and while I’m absolutely gutted to lose a player of his quality, I think we’ve got a great price which will hopefully be reinvested into the squad wisely.
I would like to point one or two things out however, in regards to Darren’s behaviour or attitude recently if you ask any Sunderland fan you will know that Darren Bent hasn’t been exactly the same player he had been since returning from a recent injury (I put this done to not being match fit), however his form over the past 9 or 10 games (2 goals) hasn’t been at the same level it was at the beginning of the season (his transfer request in the summer hadn’t affected his early season form). You must forgive Sunderland fans for putting 2 and 2 together and coming out with “tapped up”.
I believe that talks had taken place or some sort of deal was agreed prior to Villa tabling a bid for Bent, however, I think anything “underhand” was done by Bent and his Agent more than Villa, and to be honest, I believe this sort of thing goes on every day in football, we’d be extremely naive to believe otherwise.
In regards to;
“More irony; after being particularly poor on the pitch defensively so far this season”
I would like to point out that Sunderland have the second joint best defensive record this season, we currently have 11 clean sheets out of the 23 games played, only Man City can match this. Also, we have only conceded a total of 23 goals all season, only Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City can better that tally.
Hardly a “poor” defensive record.
And finally being extremely picky… Man City signed David Silva, not David Villa
.
Just a few things and this is in no way a critisism of what is a very well written piece, your self, or Aston Villa football club.
hi, thanks for your comment.
firstly, i’m hugely embarrassed by the silva/villa faux pas. normally i’d strike through corrections, but that’s a schoolboy error and i’ve shamefully editted it completely. hopefully it makes more sense for a villa fan to make such a mistake!
and i see that you’ve realised i was referring to our own defence which has been shocking this season, no worries there.
i largely agree with the rest that you have to say, we must be cautious about joining the dots between what we think we know from the outside to draw a conclusion about what has happened on the inside though.
obviously you have a better handle on bent’s demeanour than we will, but clearly he hasn’t quite been the player he was for you last season. there could be any number of reasons and in the final analysis it’s probably a bit of all of them.
the reality is that the transfer market is a murky world all too frequently driven by agents. we can’t be naive to the realities, there’s little to stop it and we all know once a player’s heart lies elsewhere, you might as well let him go, you just have to get the best deal you can in the process.
with that in mind, i can’t really complain about the nature of the barry and milner exits. where i take issue is the way liverpool conducted business in their chase for barry the previous season where they leaked news of the bid to the liverpool media on the eve of our season defining game against wigan when their season had become a dead rubber.
we lost that game and i think it made the difference between getting into europe automatically and having to settle for the intertoto. that’s without checking, i could be wrong though, it’s getting hazy now.
the fact that their public move for barry was the catalyst for alonso wanting out and without him, it could be argued, their fortunes dwindled is obviously the source of much schadenfreude for me personally.
from that perspective, i have no shame in the way it appears aston villa have conducted business here. it was quick, painless and sunderland are being very well recompensed.
best of luck with the rest of your season, i genuinely believe that the premier league is a better league with sunderland in it and they absolutely should be a top half team.
Thanks for the letting the defence comment pass
.
I completely agree, as soon as I was made aware that Bent wanted to go I felt it was in the best interested of the club to allow him to, ensuring we got the best deal. The last thing I wanted was a Rooney/Tevez situation and Bent backing down or getting a new contract to ease the burden of being at Sunderland.
I don’t have any issue with AVFC at all, they’ve been quiet and obviously did everything behind the scenes not the media like some clubs (including Sunderland at times admittedly). I also completely agree, Liverpool’s shameless pursuit of Gareth Barry should not be allowed, we had a similar situation with Benetiz talking up Kenwyne Jones in the media without any contact to Sunderland, in what we felt was a direct attempt to unsettle him.
I genuinely believe the transfer market is driven by players and their agents rather than the clubs which it shouldn’t be, however I can’t envisage a shift any time soon if the market stays the same.
Good luck with the rest of your season too, I don’t believe for second you are in danger of relegation, but I do hope you finish below us!
it looks like we’re practically saying the same thing at the same time, we’re more or less in agreement, so i’ll step away now, but thanks again for your perspective.
again, best of luck with your season. i never believed that we would be relegated and i’m certain of it now, but i don’t really see us catching the european places…
…so, if that’s the case (and i hope i’m wrong!), i’d like to see sunderland get in there, anything to shake up the order of the top of the table is fine by me!
What a fantastic article. I have been reading you blog for a few months Dan and the way you articulate yourself is great. It’s a shame other ‘proper’ sports journalists articles aren’t quite as interesting as yours. I’m also chuffed to bits with this signing, I’ve been banging on about how we should have tried to sign Bent for god knows how long, just surprised they let him go. Also means I might actually have a villa striker in my fantasyfootball squad for once!
Will be a shame if we have to let Young and/or Downing go – I think i would prefer to see Downing stay out of the two though. ahh well.
p.s, does any body else have this issue when typing a reply in the comments it takes ages for each character to appear? Using firefox
thanks for your comment, much appreciated.
yes, i have exactly the same problem with comments using firefox, but i thought it was only me. i’m currently using chrome to write this and there’s no problem.
it’s a shame as i like this system, but clearly it’s not playing well with Firefox so i’ll switch it off and go native while i look for another solution.
thanks again.
oh, and i feel the same about ash / downing. i think ash has the greater sale value and, having been with us for a while now, i think he may have gone a little stale if i’m honest.
Must apologise Dan, please ignore my piece about Sunderlands defensive record, having re-read, I’ve realised you meant Villa’s defensive record.
*back tracks*
The rest of the post stands mind!
*embarrassed face*
no worries, points well made and my villa/silva mistake far worse.
Scott,
It was my understanding that Bent said he was unhappy at Sunderland some time ago. If so and he wanted to get away, that alone accounts for “acting different”. You don’t have to be tapped up to impact performance — if he didn’t like being at the team (and clearly he didn’t) then that alone would account for any differences you and other fans were seeing.
Hi Idaho,
Actually, this is the one thing that has got Sunderland fans so much, Bent has never once indicated he was unhappy at the club, in fact, the total opposite hes talked about becoming a legend at teh club, how much he likes it up here etc. etc.
If you can provide me any links to show other wise I’d greatly appreciate it.
i’m struggling to find it myself right now, i’ve read so much in the last few days, but i definitely recall an early report from a reputable source (i think the guardian) which claimed that bent was upset at not being able to renegotiate his contract last summer, felt “unloved” and wanted to leave.
now, not saying this is accurate or defending it if it’s true; wanting a new deal after 12 months is pretty shitty behaviour, but it would suggest he was open to offers as it were.
my only point is, let’s not paint a picture of a happy darren bent skipping out the sunderland training ground into the sinister arms of gerard houllier and a suitcase of readies.
however it came about, bent’s a very willing participant.
knowing how agent driven the transfer market actually is, i wouldn’t be surprised if his agent was quietly knocking on doors looking to find an interested buyer and he knocked on ours at just the right time.
hey all,
thanks again for your comments. apologies for the rather bare look of this section now; i’ve switched off the plugin i was using as it really wasn’t playing with firefox very nicely.
i’ll at least get a stylesheet fix as soon as i can, but i’ll take a bit longer with the next comment engine, if i do install a new one.
cheers.
Interestingly, I’m not seeing the problem of late with FF 3.6.13 and Win 7 64 bit Dan.
Strange
And I’m seeing “Web Site”, where it should say “E-mail” mate.
ah, i see what you mean, i don’t normally see that as i’m logged in. the text isn’t aligning properly, the “name (required):” text has slid above the box it refers to.
that’s just a style issue, i can fix it, but i need to figure out the whole commenting/registration thing tbh.
it’s a shame, both intense debate and disqus provide all the excellent functionality i want, but they’re unreliable, slow the site down and take comments off-site which causes headaches.
“that’s just a style issue, i can fix it”
I know you’re not the sort who craves responses, but I just thought it might be confusing for someone who’s never responded before, that’s all
not at all, thanks for letting me know. i should have a temporary fix in place shortly.
I had a laugh at Ian Holloways latest rant, 46m for Charlie Adam? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
i also liked:-
“Obviously Aston Villa are a massive club, but how can they rate Darren Bent at that sort of figure and offer me that for Charlie?”
and there was me thinking we were “half-arsed” and that we “used to be famous”.
Tbf Aussie, I think he was talking about prem survival and that being what it would cost if they sold him and ended up going down.
I actually have a lot of sympathy with what he’s saying, fwiw.
Especially when you consider what we paid for our current midfielders(the ones we bought ie Petrov £7.5M, NRC £8+m, Ireland £8M) and the manager sees Adam as an improvement.
I’ve actually laughed at some of the fees I’ve seen Pool are supposed to be talking about (12Mill)for Ash, for instance.
I suspect IH has the same view as us Villans, in that as a bigger club, we’re trying to steamroller them.
that’s exactly right, but as ever our friend holloway is being extremely selective.
if a single player can be considered worth the revenue lost by not being in the premier league then darren bent could be worth £46m to us. by that logic, we got him cheap.
but then again, we didn’t buy him in a state of panic to save our season, did we?
selective is a bit of an understatement.
Holloway needs to learn to shut his trap sometimes, I used to think he made some good points, but now the more he talks the more I think he should probably shut up – for his own good! What he has done with Blackpool is definitely a good thing, however after Blackpool i cant see many larger clubs being interested in him. His outspoken and abrasive manner could well tarnish whoever hires him.
As for Panic – yes and no, yes in that we needed to see changes and no, it’s GH’s first transfer window, and January signings always cost more, so a large fee was likely, regardless of who gets signed, and I feel we might see another £10m spent before the window closes.
on another note, you can hear me as Fan of the Week on the BCL podcast! haha
Selective?
Yes I’d agree.
But I actually quite like that.
It demonstrates an “us against them” attitude that might well help us at the moment.
Going back to the did we tap Bent up? question, I think it’s beyond doubt.
Well, not that we tapped him up, but I’d put money we were dealing with his agent beforehand.
It doesn’t take much to imagine a player simply saying “get me a move and I’m not bothered about the specific details” does it?
That way, he can genuinely say he knew nothing about it.
Football’s just ruined, simple as, imo.
But I’ve moaned about it before, so I’ll leave it there.
Here’s hoping DB hits a minimum 10 goals before the season’s end