Firstly, despite all of the newspapers running the same story regarding Bent's goalscoring record since August 2005 (for those of you who avoid the 'red tops' only Didier Drogba and Wayne Rooney have scored more Premier League goals since that magical date) £24million for someone unproven at the elite level of the game is madness.
This is before we even begin to contemplate the fact that Villa Park is in the midst of a mini-crisis which could still easily be upgraded to a full, red-alert catastrophe. The players don't like the management, Houllier is struggling to enliven the fans and they are still swimming in the murky water of the relegation zone.
Then add to the equation the fact that Steve Bruce is taking Sunderland to heights not known at the Stadium of Light for quite some time, and has significant backers to keep them there, and it becomes stranger still.
Bent obviously feels he has joined a bigger club and is almost definitely collecting a bigger, bulging pay packet each month, so in that respect his decision isn't that odd.
But Randy Lerner lost one of the best managers in Europe because of his tight grip on the purse-strings and his cashing in of his most valuable assets. Now he is allowing a huge sum of money to be spent on one individual, Martin O'Neill must be finding it all quite baffling.
Steve Bruce should be contented, especially if he is allowed to reinvest a large chunk of the transfer fee on improving his squad with three of four quality players.
The last thing that seems evident from this transfer (I keep wanting to call it a 'saga' but there has been no hint of such a protracted event occurring) is that English players, regardless of how many international caps, goals or call-ups will be overpriced when compared to their overseas equivalents. Especially now we have the new quota system in place.
So the only question that remains is which players will Bruce replace Bent with? If he wants value for money, chances are he is better shopping abroad.
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I think Villa paid over the odds for him but not by much. He's under contract, midway through a season giving Sunderland little chance of replacing him so you can understand them holding out for as much as possible. When you look at the fee it does seem large but possibly a better investment than a unproven player at half the cost like Liverpool have done in the past with Diouf or Cisse. I wonder if Liverpool would have better off with equivalent players at the time such as Kevin Phillips?
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