[Archived] Bentley

[philipl]

Bentley as photoshopped by Guardian readers

[Hughesy]

Nicko - no news on Bentley signing a new deal yet?? Its taking along time!

[bobsterbrfc]

Nicko - no news on Bentley signing a new deal yet?? Its taking along time!

one of the papers this morning is running a story about Chelsea and Liverpool in a battle for Bents, it wasn't one the gash papers either, saw the front pade reviews on SSN then.

[American Rover12]

David Bentley is an excellent player who will get better as the years go by, understand those criticising him though because they want it now, but long term Bentley will continue to develop and become an outstanding player for Rovers.

Have faith dont be too demanding he will become very good in the future.

Good call

[Spansterkid]

one of the papers this morning is running a story about Chelsea and Liverpool in a battle for Bents, it wasn't one the gash papers either, saw the front pade reviews on SSN then.

It's The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle3803871.ece

[iamarover]

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/apr/24/arsenal.premierleague

Saw this this morning about Hleb at Arsenal. He is tied to Arsenal on a 5 year deal until 2010, but, under FIFA regulations he can buy himself out of his contract this summer two years early and effectively leave on a cut price deal. The rule applies to players under 28.

Bentley is tied until 2011, presumably on a 5 year deal. So could he buy himself out next year? if so, then Rovers need to sell this summer or face losing him for a couple of bob and a Joe Craig in controversial circumstances. He is a bright boy and I am sure he and his agent are on this...

...anyone know when his third year is up.? Is it next year or 2009?

[joey_big_nose]

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/apr/24/arsenal.premierleague

Saw this this morning about Hleb at Arsenal. He is tied to Arsenal on a 5 year deal until 2010, but, under FIFA regulations he can buy himself out of his contract this summer two years early and effectively leave on a cut price deal. The rule applies to players under 28.

Bentley is tied until 2011, presumably on a 5 year deal. So could he buy himself out next year? if so, then Rovers need to sell this summer or face losing him for a couple of bob and a Joe Craig in controversial circumstances. He is a bright boy and I am sure he and his agent are on this...

...anyone know when his third year is up.? Is it next year or 2009?

Good point. I think the deal is you are tied to the club for three years from when you sign a contract though. I think he signed a new one only a year ago so we have two years in that case.

[iamarover]

Good point. I think the deal is you are tied to the club for three years from when you sign a contract though. I think he signed a new one only a year ago so we have two years in that case.

So next summer we pretty well have to sell him unless we have an unbelievable season. So we should probably hold onto him whatever the Times thinks.

[Billy Castell]

Has Bentley got enough money to buy out his contract though?

Anyway, I'd love him to stay, so we can prove to the media we can keep our best players despite all the speculation. If he went, I hope we get £15m-20m for him. Well, if Pennant is worth £6m...................

[Hughesy]

According to one of the papers Diouf is likely to leave for £5m to either Valencia or Man City. £5m is alot for his attitude!

[tony gale's mic]

Has Bentley got enough money to buy out his contract though?

Anyway, I'd love him to stay, so we can prove to the media we can keep our best players despite all the speculation. If he went, I hope we get £15m-20m for him. Well, if Pennant is worth £6m...................

I assume the money may be provided by the other club in lieu of a transfer fee? I mean we wouldnt be talking much more than £5 million or so.

[deryck guyler's spoon]

How many times have we been here before?

He's offski.

[Hughesy]

I think he is off as he wants European Football. If thats the case then let him go.

We shouldnt be paying him £60k per week at our club or £3m a season, thats too much!!

£15m + I would snap their hands off and give it straight to Hughes to spend.

[Iceman]

its the same as in recent years,neill,bellamy etc whereby a player has gone nowhere with their previous clubs,comes to Rovers and after doing well,and after having been given the chance to get their careers back on track,they hint that they want to leave.Why should Blackburn Rovers be consisdered a stepping stone for better things and better opportunities at big clubs.It pisses me off that the fans at the club,have fallen into that same idea that we just a club where players can come and go when ever they feel like it.No! we a professional club,and we should say to other clubs,that our best players are not for sale because we want to achieve things and win trophy's as well.Its as if we some sort of academy or shop,where we put our players in the window for others to buy.

What has this club come to,yes we dont have the financial strength as other clubs but if players leave just because of money then they shouldnt be at the club.Neill and Bellamy both said they left the club to win trophy's,well i can guarantee you it wasnt beacuse of that.Its the greed that some footballers thrive on,that makes them leave a club that has provided them with some sort of stability in their careers.

[AndyC]

its the same as in recent years,neill,bellamy etc whereby a player has gone nowhere with their previous clubs,comes to Rovers and after doing well,and after having been given the chance to get their careers back on track,they hint that they want to leave.Why should Blackburn Rovers be consisdered a stepping stone for better things and better opportunities at big clubs.It pisses me off that the fans at the club,have fallen into that same idea that we just a club where players can come and go when ever they feel like it.No! we a professional club,and we should say to other clubs,that our best players are not for sale because we want to achieve things and win trophy's as well.Its as if we some sort of academy or shop,where we put our players in the window for others to buy.

What has this club come to,yes we dont have the financial strength as other clubs but if players leave just because of money then they shouldnt be at the club.Neill and Bellamy both said they left the club to win trophy's,well i can guarantee you it wasnt beacuse of that.Its the greed that some footballers thrive on,that makes them leave a club that has provided them with some sort of stability in their careers.

it's just reality.

to say he was going nowhere is rubbish. he couldnt break into the arsenal 'invincibles' and wanted to play football every week, so he left.

its to hughes credit that he snapped him up and got the best out of him.

now - he's one of the best players in the country. he wants to play in the champions league and we're not even going to make it into europe....

frankly - his talents deserve to be played out on the biggest stage,

i'll wish him well when he goes to chelsea for 15 million and i'll trust hughes to unearth 2 or 3 players that can come in and do a great job for us.

[Eddie]

I really think some people think too much of Bentley. He's not a world class player, he's not "deserving" of anything and he doesn't stand-out week-in-week-out in the premiership. He's very good, but he's very good in a way that players regularly are at the top level. A talent worth holding onto, but not one that United or Chelsea are going to break the bank to get a hold of.

[DP]

After not seeing much of Rovers earlier in the season I've seen a lot of live games recently (that's live, not on the telly) and Bentley definitely does stand out from the rest. Even when he has a poor game (by his standards) he's still clearly a cut above the rest of the players on the pitch, ours and theres.

[joey_big_nose]

Has Bentley got enough money to buy out his contract though?

Anyway, I'd love him to stay, so we can prove to the media we can keep our best players despite all the speculation. If he went, I hope we get £15m-20m for him. Well, if Pennant is worth £6m...................

Can't the new club he leaves to go to just pay it as a transder fee?

I mean you could have a charade where the player pays it but then whoever buys him gives it to him as a "signing bonus" but it seems a bit pointless.

THis is a bit of a sad development as a rule. More and more players are going to pull a Sidwell/Benayoun/Walcot and go and sit on the bench for big teams and never play.

Already the big four (with the exception of Arsenal) have full teams of top quality players who can't get a game.

[blue phil]

After not seeing much of Rovers earlier in the season I've seen a lot of live games recently (that's live, not on the telly) and Bentley definitely does stand out from the rest. Even when he has a poor game (by his standards) he's still clearly a cut above the rest of the players on the pitch, ours and theres.

Considering our last few games have included Liverpool and UTD I'd say this was a great exaggeration to say the least .

If Bentley goes to Liverpool or Chelsea at this stage of his career he'd better get used to missing a lot of matches - which is daft considering he left Arsenal for precisely that reason not so long ago .

I'd argue that another season playing consistently for Rovers - and hopefully producing more consistently high levels of performances - is a must for him .

But then again I'm not his agent .......

[John]

I have made my views clear on Bentley previously. We should do all we can to do to keep him (as we are in the process of doing). To quote Hughes recently, you don't let quality players leave your football club if there is something you can do about it.

Personally, I also enjoy watching him play, as he is a flair player and one of our best as well.

However, at the moment, I find it difficult to see him signing a new contract. He seems very ambitious and I am not sure if we can match his ambitions in the short-term. I could not imagine him signing a new contract and saying that he always wanted to stay and that we are a club going places etc etc - suppose, it seems like the main reason the club instigated these contract talks is to give him a pay rise anyway.

Hopefully, he realises his progress is down to the environment he is working in, therefore stays with us for a few more seasons yet...

[gumboots]

I'm finding it really hard to understand the amount of vitriol we're beginning to get against Bentley here. The lad may leave but so far he hasn't said he is going, hasn't really made any noises at all to that effect and is probably waiting to see what's out there for him and then weighing up the pros and cons. He may well decide to go if the club lets him but that's his right and the contract hes's still got to run means that the club are still in control of what happens as far as clubs ever are. As for the arrogance etc that some people are accusing him of, well, I can only say I've never seen any evidence off field of his being too big for his boots. He was charming again to our French visitors this weekend as were all the players they met. On field he does seem to feel it's up to him to do things but then there are enough people on here talking about his not taking games by the scruff of the neck and perhaps that's what he's trying to do. I think a lot of what you see and hear is media driven and also his agent trying to see what there is for David out there. Villa are going through the same media speculation with Barry and you can perhaps understand their worries when you realise that Barry is probably onto his last major contract and has never been anywhere else, but even then I think with Villa on the up he might decide to stay. There's too much uncertainty about Chelsea and Liverpool at the moment for them to really press ahead with transfers and they can't sign anyone at the moment because the windows not open. May to September is enough time to worry about Bentley leaving. Lets enjoy the rest of the season first and stop getting on Bentley's back becasue of media reports.

[thenodrog]

its the same as in recent years,neill,bellamy etc whereby a player has gone nowhere with their previous clubs,comes to Rovers and after doing well,and after having been given the chance to get their careers back on track,they hint that they want to leave.Why should Blackburn Rovers be consisdered a stepping stone for better things and better opportunities at big clubs.It pisses me off that the fans at the club,have fallen into that same idea that we just a club where players can come and go when ever they feel like it.No! we a professional club,and we should say to other clubs,that our best players are not for sale because we want to achieve things and win trophy's as well.Its as if we some sort of academy or shop,where we put our players in the window for others to buy.

What has this club come to,yes we dont have the financial strength as other clubs but if players leave just because of money then they shouldnt be at the club.Neill and Bellamy both said they left the club to win trophy's,well i can guarantee you it wasnt beacuse of that.Its the greed that some footballers thrive on,that makes them leave a club that has provided them with some sort of stability in their careers.

C'mon Iceman get a grip. Now that the iron curtain is down I can only think of 1 or 2 clubs in the entire world where that situation does NOT exist! There's already talk of Barry to Lpool, Gerrard to Chelsea, Lampard to somewhere in Spain, Berbatov to MU, Ronaldo to Madrid etc etc.

If the authorities i.e. FIFA / UEFA want to change anything then they need to address the issue of squad size. A restriction of somewhere between 25-27 players per squad should see much less of the 'buying-for-buyings-sake-to-sit-on-the-subs-bench-rather-than-turn-out-for-a-rival-club' that we have now. imo The paying public has a right to see top talent actually play rather than jog up and down touchlines doing stretching exercises for 85 mins.

[Eddie]

It's a good idea. Just say that you can only register a certain number of players for the league, with registration being re-opened in January, essentially exactly as it is worked for European competition. I'm still not sure exactly how much it would change, but it would make things at least slightly better.

Edit: It would also put us one step closer to my dream: the salary/wage cap.

[thenodrog]

Edit: It would also put us one step closer to my dream: the salary/wage cap.

...... is that your dad's dream too eddie?

[Eddie]

Eh?