David Bentley Will Be a Big Star...

...as long as Pekhart (seen leering in the background) doesn't kill him first.


Quoteth BBC:

Bentley sealed the win for Juande Ramos' team when Gareth Bale raced down the left flank, cut inside and his cross eventually found its way to Bentley for the easiest of finishes.

The preseason is the preseason is the preseason, as the saying goes. But there's nothing in the sentence above that I wouldn't mind reading over and again for the next ten months... or ten years if you'd allow me a midsummer's day dream. (To have Bale back and healthy-- for the moment-- is a dream. He is big, with pace and a clever left foot that makes one (me) think dirty thoughts.)

But the focus here is David Bentley and what he brings to this Spurs side. We all know he can whip in a cross; and that he may be the heir apparent to old Goldenballs on the right side of the England midfield; and that yes, he may be a bit much at times.

But this year, with this team, he is precisely what the doctor ordered.

The proverbial Boyhood Dream Move can cut both ways, a lesson us forlorn yiddos were taught in brutal fashion this week. It was Off with Robbie and on with The Bentley Era in the space of three days. And you know what, I've already convinced myself that it's all for the best. So let there be no doubt, whomever wears the band, this club flies or dies with David Bentley.

The 23-year-old was not 24 hours a Spurs man before proclaiming that his "heart is at Tottenham." It was a kind thing to say, whether or not you believe him. What's important though is that his locker is at Tottenham, and will be for at least the next five seasons. That Bentley came up through the Arsenal youth system is rubbish for the tabloids to feast on, and maybe even enough to earn him a few Ribbits when he arrives at the Emirates. What I'm feasting on today though, is the attitude. Finally a player who will speak up. Who will provoke. Who might complain. And not with his agent's tongue. Bentley brings some juice to a team that, for all its insistence on "young, English talent," has played with the collective demeanor of an old Italian club since Edgard Davids left the mix.

"It's all there for us," Bentley said yesterday morning.

Fuck yea, it is! (Even if it isn't...)