Years Active in the Premier League:
2001-2002, 2005-2014
Premier League Clubs:
Ipswich Town (1 goal in 5 PL appearances)
Charlton Athletic (31 goals in 68 PL appearances)
Tottenham Hotspur (18 goals in 60 PL appearances)
Sunderland (32 goals in 58 PL appearances)
Fulham (3 goals in 24 PL appearances)
Aston Villa (21 goals in 58 PL appearances)**
Best Premier League Season:
24 goals for Sunderland in 2009-2010
Why So Good?:
Darren Bent is a capable and skilled poacher who, through a mixture of bad luck, a scarcity of available chances and patches of bad form at crucial times, has never been given the chance at the top level. That’s one way of looking at it.
Another way would be to put the England striker’s failure to reach the summit down to his lack of a ‘footballing brain’; that is the absence of insight, the inability to manufacture an unrehearsed plan B should be find his path to goal cut-off or his natural game plan neutralised. Lucky for Bent then that his plan A is rarely found wanting with the striker’s proverbial ‘nose for a goal’ putting him among the best pure goalscorers the Premier League has had in the last ten years. Even now, with his pace and influence on the wane, we would advise you underrate the England man at your folly.
Best Moment:
Don’t say beach ball goal…Don’t say beach ball goal…Darren Bent’s beach ball goal for Sunderland against Liverpool does not best represent his abilities, not did it prove decisive in any heated title race or tight relegation battle, but it remains one of the most ridiculous and endlessly watchable incidents in Premier League history. Bent’s nonchalant celebration, a one-man masterclass in the teaching the world ‘every goal counts’, is the icing on the cake.
Goal Sample:
As if to prove our point, the only Bent goal to be found on Youtube (outside of compilations and a few Fulham scrappers) is his beach ball blunderbuss but his first in the selection below helps show he’s a bit more than a tap-in merchant.
Manchester United 2 Sunderland 2, 3rd October 2009
Let Them Eat Goals 
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