Darren Bent: The Rain Man of Strikers

Is it really so insane to suggest that England's best striker right now might well be Darren Bent?


The 24-year-old scored 13 goals in the pre-season, and we should have seen this coming (then again, playing games against the likes of Leyton Orient, you're bound to rack up goals, right?), but since August 31 (of course he didn't score in the first two EPL fixtures), he's been on fire to the tune of 11 goals in 16 games (all competitions).

I know, I know... this simply shouldn't happen. And yet, he's in the Top 3 for EPL scoring along with Nicolas Anelka and Amr Zaki, forming perhaps the unlikeliest top scorers list imaginable. What kind of odds would you have gotten on that in July?

The Spurs revival is down to Bent more than anything, although Redknapp's influence and ability to extract hard work from his well-paid midfield is also paying dividends. Right up to the transfer deadline, one had to wonder just where the goals would come from once Berbatov and Keane were sold, but so far, Darren f*cking Bent has answered the call.

Yes, he's still young, and yes, he had a good track record at Charlton, but his 2008/09 exploits to date transcend all these accomplishments. He's in the form of his life, right now. Everything he touches turns to goals, and with a friendly against Ze Germans next week, can Capello honestly turn him down?

Fabio might; he does have two other in-form strikers in Agbonlahor and Defoe (both with 6 EPL goals so far), and it's almost inevitable that the crocked ghost of Michael Owen will still get a spot in the squad somewhere.

I cannot believe I'm saying this, but Bent should get a nod, surely. Put him in with Rooney and let's see if his Midas touch continues. Of course Ledley King agrees.

So for now, in light of this early-Xmas miracle for Tottenham, sit back with a jug of wine and a bottle of Vicodin, and enjoy some Darren Bent classics.

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We did good this week

Our predictions machine appears to be fully functioning again. I can't remember the last week we had that went this well. Did it have something to do with Geovanni? Or Cesc Fabregas? Or Dirk Kuyt?

Probably all of the above, and also the fact that we rewired it to predict games with the same ferocity that Joe Kinnear speaks. It's high time the predictions racket used a few more swear words.



BANG ON THE MONEY
Man City 2, Liverpool 3
Blackburn 0, Man United 2
Tottenham 0, Hull 1
West Brom 1, Fulham 0
Sunderland 1, Arsenal 1

ALMOST KINDA RIGHT
Everton 2, Newcastle 2 (1-1)
Portsmouth 2, Stoke 1 (3-1)
Wigan 0, Middlesbrough 1 (0-0)

NOT EVEN CLOSE
Chelsea 2, Aston Villa 0 (4-1)
West Ham 1, Bolton 3 (5-1)

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Leigh Steinberg is a 'Tard

That's Leigh Steinberg and he is a 'tard. That's right. Sure, it's the headline, but it's worth repeating.

And I'm sorry if that offends 'tards to be lumped into the same class as an agent but, as mentioned a couple of days ago in the NYT's soccer blog (and alluded to below), the agent thinks the world's most popular sport needs to be tinkered with in order for it to appeal to Americans. Quoth the moron:

"The fact is, I think, that soccer doesn’t fit the taste of the American sports fan, who likes a finite chance of success or failure on every play,” Steinberg said. “It doesn’t have the type of pacing, like a lot of scoring. There is continuous play without scoring and the game is not susceptible to commercial breaks. Americans like fast burst of action and scoring."

I'm going to translate "not susceptible to commercial breaks" as "even if it did become wildly popular, it still wouldn't be able to maximize revenue streams from advertisers because it doesn't have definite commercial breaks, and by leaving all that money on the table, it would negatively impact player salaries and with it any commission I would draw, which is irrelevant because I don't even rep any soccer players."

You know of all the criticisms of why soccer hasn't taken off in this country, the one I never considered was there was no sequence of play that went 'score to commerical to change-of-possesion to commercial' to really draw a viewer in. Yeah, that continuous play shit sucks total ass. Too bad only 300 million people have that figured out.

But that's not even the best part.

“And yes, you can build on David Beckham as a star. But again, to really succeed, just let us tinker. Blow up the scoring. The game can be exciting. I just love that soccer announcer we have out here, the one who goes ‘Goooooooooooooooooal.’ It’s hilarious and exciting.”

I'll ignore the subtle racist overtones in his opinions of Andres Cantor and instead just focus on the scoring aspects.

Okay, if scoring is what draws viewers, then why do the ratings for the Pro Bowl suck relative to even the most mind-numbingly unwatchable late season tilt between, say, the Texans and the Fins?

In fact, what's known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played," the 1958 NFL championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants, had a final score of 23-17. The Colts' winning score came in overtime, so there was no extra point. That means if you throw out the two field goals (which, yes is arbitrary, but there really is no soccer analog) then that final score was the equivalent of a 3-2 soccer match.

That's it. So the Greatest Game Ever Played more or less ended 3-2, oh and that's with an extra 8 minutes of clock time.

And, if I can get a little personal, maybe the greatest baseball game I ever saw ended 1-0 in extra innings. That was Game 7 of the 1991 World Series between the Twins and the Braves. And it was an insane pitcher's duel between John Smoltz and Jack Morris.

Nine innings. Zero runs. And it was fucking riveting stuff. I still get pissed at Kent Hrbek just thinking about that Series.

Anyway, Steinberg gets summarily trashed in the blog post's comments and rightfully so because his comments are fucking idiotic. But can we maybe use his absolute dumbassedness as a catalyst to start to put to bed this whole notion that scoring equals excitement?

Lots of scoring usually just means shitty defense. Just ask Derby County, or the L.A. Galaxy for that matter.

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