A Polite Request for Darren Bent: Sit Down and Shut Up

You might have noticed that Darren Bent is scoring goals this season. With half the season gone his brace at Sunderland puts him a solitary goal behind our little pocket rocket in the race for the Golden Boot. You would have to be living under a rock not to have heard the sickly sweet praise being heaped on him by the chest waxing, teeth whitening, perma-tanned metrosexuals on MOTD. Suddenly there are calls for a place on the plane to South Africa. After all, he's scoring goals, that means he must be good..right?

I never disliked Darren Bent as a person when he was at Spurs. Unlike Berbatov he covered plenty of ground, chased up loose balls and genuinely looked like he gave a toss when he scored. However, few Tottenham fans will look back in bleary eyed nostalgia at the 'good old days' when Benty was spearheading our attack. At best he was the kind of player who didn't suit our style of play. Playing the ball over the top or lumping long balls forward for flick ons has never been (and hopefully never will be) the way Tottenham play. At worst (and probably closer to the truth) he was out of his depth. The pressure of playing at a top club, the looming spectre of his price tag and his pairing with considerably more accomplished players left him looking distinctly average.

I can hear the 'Bent for England' lobby now, checking their stats through spectacles steamed up with nerdish indignation "He scored goals for you...he was your top scorer". Yes, Bent scored goals for us but what the stats don't tell you is how many times he missed headers, ballooned simple shots and wasted golden opportunities getting the ball trapped under his feet. The number of times a move would build up over several minutes only for Bent to run it out of play or shoot hopelessly wide are too numerous to recall. When I think of his name I do not think of his goal tally, I think of the frustration and fury I felt watching him, the howls of derision from every other fan in the stand and the laughter of my mates at the pub everytime he blew a chance.

Despite all this I felt no bad feeling towards him and was happy to see him linked with a move away in the summer. Before we could wish him all the best my news now feed was flooded by reports of his foul mouthed tirade on Twitter. I can understand the frustration and uncertainty involved in such a prolonged transaction but this isn't Championship Manager, this is real life with real money. Tottenham is not just a football club, it is a business, and an incredibly successful one. Levy was only doing his best to get a realistic return on our admittedly inflated purchase price.

Since his move, in every interview I have watched he has dropped in references to Tottenham and 'Arry in particular. All have been negative, not only about 'Arry and his management style but about the dressing room, the board and the club itself. A true professional would stand tall and let the goals speak for themselves. They would have the self-respect not to be drawn into bitching about a former club in the media, the dignity to remember who took a chance on them in the first place. Defoe spent more time on the bench over the course of years than Bent ever did yet when he moved to Pompey there wasn't one negative remark, only a profound sadness that things hadn't worked out how he had wished.

My most fervent desire is that Bent gets a place in the England team so that millions of people all round the world can see what a thoroughly average and mentally weak player he really is.

InArryWeTrust