Darren Bent loaned to Brighton seems like a win for all parties; but is the Championship the ideal place for faltering professionals to rediscover form, or is it the first stop on a voyage into the football wilderness?
There is no doubting Bent’s ability in the past. At his peak, he averaged a goal every two games with Sunderland, scoring 32 goals in 58 league performances, prompting his £24 million move to Aston Villa.
Since then his record has been far leaner. From August 2012 he has scored only 12 goals in 61 appearances; his average plummeting to one goal in every five appearances.
The rationale from Villa’s point of view is clear; in the Championship, Bent may rediscover a goal scoring touch from regular starts, without posing any threat to Villa’s own stuttering campaign.
In a perfect world he could return to the West Midlands having scored in each of his five potential games with Brighton, starting this Saturday against his former club, Fulham. This, however, is not a perfect world.
Very few professionals, who descend the English football ladder, particularly at Bent’s age of 30, ever return to the summit.
There are far more examples of once-promising players who have made the drop and either are yet to return to the Promised Land, or simply never did. Michael Bridges, David Bentley, Roy Carroll, Jon Stead, Bradley Wright-Phillips, Federico Macheda, Pascal Chimbonda, Michael Chopra, Clinton Morrison, Dave Kitson, Chris Eagles, Marlon Harewood, to name but a handful.
After making the drop, each of these professionals never have, or with time against them is yet to, rekindle the kind of form that had at one stage had each of them tipped for big things.
It is evidently clear in the plight of Jermaine Beckford at present. Following success on loan at Scunthorpe and after cementing his place as a starter for Leeds United, Beckford earned himself a four-year contract with Everton in 2010. His potential never fully realised in the top flight, Beckford was shipped out to Championship side Leicester City after just one season. The descent is yet to halt.
Beckford was loaned by the Foxes to Huddersfield prior to being sold to Bolton in July 2013. Now he finds himself on loan from Bolton to Preston North End of League One until January 2015, and the Trotters have already confirmed they will most certainly look to extend this loan until the end of the season.
In just four years, Beckford has slid from the top tier of English football, arguably the finest league in Europe, to the relative anonymity of the English third tier.
Whilst there may be individual reasons for the demise of each of these once-bright careers, it is undeniable that the failures outweigh the success stories. Personally, I struggle to recall too many players that have bucked this trend.
Following a loan spell with Leicester City in the Championship, Yakubu returned to the Premier League with Blackburn and netted a respectable 17 goals in 30 league appearances. However, even that wasn’t enough to save Blackburn and preserve Yakubu’s Premier League status.
There are the odd few exceptions; Nicky Barmby joining League One Hull and embarking on a fairytale return to the top tier, but any such examples really are exceptions.
Maybe Darren Bent’s hand has been forced. Aston Villa certainly would not want Bent joining any bottom half rivals scoring goals that may haunt his parent club; but one thing is certain, in dropping a division, Darren Bent is taking a major risk if he does have serious aspirations of returning to the Premier League as a first choice number 9. The odds are most certainly not in his favour.
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