"It does hurt to be honest," said Bent in response to the idea that he is a footballing mercenary. "When I was at Charlton I could have gone to West Ham for double but I chose for footballing reasons to go to Tottenham. I am sure people will have opinions on why I have joined Villa given where they are [17th in the league]. But I believe Villa are in a false position and it's a massive football club with massive tradition and massive history."
I'm no mercenary screams the headline in the Guardian... So why has Darren Bent moved? Is it to move to a bigger club like he says? Is it to be closer to his family in London like the rumour mill says? Or is it for the money like most people think but don't say?
I have a theory, all footballers have a shelf life, with strikers having the shortest sell by date. He is currently in the richest vein of form in his career scoring 38 goals in 58 games for Sunderland and challenging for a first team place for England. His market value is currently as high as its going to get. So why move? Paul Hayward of the Guardian has probably summed it up the best in my eyes when talking about Wayne Rooneys transfer request,
"Advisers get ideas. Advisers think ahead. A notion that starts in a sleepless night becomes a possibility and then a desired objective. Already we see that Rooney is not on the Scholes longevity chart. He smokes and drinks and blunders across the minefield of our front pages. When precocity collides with hedonism, agents tend to calculate that their star ought to make one big move before deterioration sets in. That way the whole camp can shake the money tree."
Now I don't know if Bent has hedonistic or self destructive tendencies, what I know is he doesn't sell shirts and it is likely that he won't gain international recognition like a Rooney, Lampard or Gerrard. He is known for being a Premier League footballer who gets goals and at the moment he's currently looking like the best one at doing that, with the demise of Fernando Torres, Didier Drogba and Wayne Rooney.
It's fair to say that Bent has hit his peak value at the age of 27. So its time to make some money for Bent and his agents. His name doesn't carry the same brand value as a Villa, Rooney or an Ibrahimovic and he doesn't have the all round ability to reinvent himself like Alan Shearer and Dwight Yorke for example have done in the past. His agents know this and understand that goals can dry up as quickly as they come. An example of this was Kevin Phillips was at Sunderland, the club rejected a £16m bid for Kevin Phillips only to sell the striker to Southampton for £3m less than two years later. Bent and his agents have just ensured that he doesn't end up missing a bumper payday like Kevin Phillips.
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