West Ham sign Bent for 17m

[jonesie]

£17m is, to quote AA, a '****ing joke' for a player who's only played twice for England and only been a Premiership regular for 2 seasons. The English market is stupidly inflated.

(Edit: Apparently it's £16m + Hayden Mullins)

Incidentally, the Mail's report on it says that we've had a £3m bid for Benayoun turned down...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/sport/football.html?in_article_id=461837&in_page_id=1779

[thesilverfoxlfc]

Their owner is a billionaire though....

I dont think it will fall apart.

Their Chairman is a media whore, he's always on TV just like that other media whore Mandaric :whatever:

Cant stand him and next time he's on tv have alook at his tie....could the knot be any bigger at the top

[sinbad]

Money-mad Hammers pay £17m for Bent
By MATT BARLOW - 13th June 2007

West Ham swooped for Darren Bent last night in a £17million deal guaranteed to send shockwaves through the transfer market.

The Hammers have agreed to pay £16m for Charlton’s England striker with midfielder Hayden Mullins, rated at £1m, heading to The Valley as part of the package.

Darren Bent

Record deal: England striker Darren Bent is West Ham’s top signing at £17m

Bent, 23, has agreed personal terms on a five-year contract worth £75,000 a week and will fly home from holiday in the Caribbean for a medical.

The transfer should be completed by the weekend to confirm another coup for Alan Curbishley and his big-spending West Ham board.

In the end Tottenham, who bid £18m for Bent in January and led the chase for so long, were simply overpowered by the financial clout of the Hammers under Eggert Magnusson and his Icelandic moneymen.

Even Liverpool, who made a discreet inquiry last weekend, baulked at Charlton’s £18m asking price for a player who has made just two appearances for England in friendlies against Uruguay and Greece.

Spurs had been confident of signing Bent, who was keen to play in Europe to boost his England prospects.

Manager Martin Jol may have been able to point to a young and improving team which has finished fifth in the Premiership for the last two seasons but that wasn’t enough.

Spurs refused to go higher than £12m this summer and pay wages that would shatter their structure.

The top earners at Spurs take home £50,000 a week and their best offer to Bent was £35,000.

Another trump card for Curbishley was the fact that Charlton boss Alan Pardew was keen to take Mullins to The Valley from his former club.

Pardew was also keen on West Ham’s Marlon Harewood but Birmingham and Fulham are also interested in the striker.

Relegated Charlton reached the stage where they were anxious to move Bent out and re-invest the money in new players to invigorate the club and challenge for a swift return back to the Premier League.

The Bent deal is sure to be greeted with a cheer in Ipswich who will receive a £2.88m sell-on fee as part of the agreement which took the striker to The Valley for £2.6m.

Charlton and Wigan were the only teams interested in Bent when Ipswich wanted to sell him two years ago.

Former Charlton boss Curbishley signed him and Bent responded by scoring 31 Premiership goals in two seasons and breaking into the England team.

The pair will now be reunited at Upton Park where Curbishley, having avoided relegation on the last day of the season, is in the middle of a revolution.

He has already lured Scott Parker to the club from Newcastle, paying £7m and £73,000 a week.

The Hammers snatched Lucas Neill from under the nose of Liverpool in January, have tried to hijack Joey Barton’s move from Manchester City to Newcastle and made an audacious bid to prise Andrew Johnson away from Everton, offering him £90,000 a week.

West Ham have Chelsea’s Shaun Wright-Phillips in their sights and are suddenly competing with Chelsea in terms of wages.

But they are fighting to hang on to Yossi Benayoun after rejecting a bid of £3m from Liverpool.

The 27-yearold Israel winger has two years left on his contract and has still not signed an improved five-year deal agreed verbally last month.

Liverpool winger Mark Gonzalez has cast doubts on a return to Spain with relegation-threatened Real Betis.

He said: "I want to take my career forwards, not backwards."


Thank **** for that.

[REDSCOUSER]

What a friggin' joke, Bent is not worth more than 10£m tops. This transfer market is getting worse every year with clubs like WHU forking out OTT fees for ok players thus increasing the value of all other players. Utter fooking madness. Thank **** we did not sign him, amen.

[peekay]

75000 a week for 5 years. Thats 20 million quid.Plus the 17 m transfer fee
Espana here we come.

[REDSCOUSER]

Better believe it, Villa or Eto'o will do. Although it might be a pipe dream.

[Meursault]

With E'to & Villa declaring their love to stay with their respective clubs, Tevez declaring his desire to move to Serie A, now Bent has been signed by others.

That leaves us with Trezeguet on a free and an over-priced Fernando Torres. Guess who Parry will sign?

[Guest]

£ 17 M or not, it's the price clubs are prepared to pay for talent these days. Either you keep up with them or accept that you'll have to scrap the barrel.

[Guest]

I've been saying that for weeks. Player's price is set by clubs, willing or not to meet it. Now that West Ham has agreed to pay £ 17 M for Darren Bent, expect inflated prices for ordinary players. The market is crazy.

[Finnish_Red]

Must be a best deal in the Charlton's history by a mile. Gives them something to play with in the Championship.

[cannotmakeit]

promotion next season with that.

[DannyMan2006]

Spurs and the Hammers have both tabled official bids.

Bent is torn between the two clubs. SSN now.

Bid is undisclosed.

Positive we would be in for him if we were not already targeting a player of higher calibre.

Say hello to Mr Torres.

[DannyMan2006]

Heres a good bet to take:

Bent to Spurs.

Defoe to Man Utd.

Bellamy to West Ham.

Wondewhat odds I'd get for that.

[Joe Le Toff]

If this fee is the taste of things to come in the transfer market this summer then we are ****ed.

[Rich]

Crazy price - BUT West Ham will be hoping that if he scores 15+ goals for them next season they'll be doing well.

It's all arbitrary anyway, the crow is all we need.