The former England striker sat down with FFT to answer readers' questions in our latest issue
(Image credit: Getty)
Darren Bent has been talking to FourFourTwo about a long, prolific career in the Premier League, Championship and for England.
Bent enjoyed four years at Ipswich Town and two at Charlton Athletic, before he linked up with Harry Redknapp at Tottenham Hotspur. While there, Redknapp famously told reporters that his "missus" could have scored a chance that Bent had missed.
“That was just Harry being Harry, but it was still frustrating," Bent told FFT. "While I know he didn’t mean anything malicious by it, people talk about it – we’re talking about it again now and it happened more than 10 years ago."
"At the time, it bothered me a little bit. It was difficult because I’d missed a chance against Portsmouth that I should have scored and he probably wanted to beat his old club, so it was possibly frustration coming out. Now, if we see each other we laugh about it, but in the moment it wasn’t funny."
In the end, the comment wasn't the determining factor in the striker leaving White Hart Lane.
"I left because I knew Harry wanted to bring in Peter Crouch, and he’d already brought back Defoe and Keane. It wasn’t that he didn’t rate me, because he played me a lot when I was there, but I knew he had other players he wanted."
"By the end of the season, the relationship between me and him had broken down and I wanted to leave. It worked out well for both of us: the next season, they got into the Champions League and I scored 25 goals for Sunderland."
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Ahead of signing for Sunderland, Bent famously tweeted "Do I wanna go Hull City? NO. Do I wanna go Stoke? NO. Do I wanna go Sunderland? YES, so stop f****** around, Levy." Bent says that this was just another example of how frustrated he was while in North London.
(Image credit: Future)
"It was really frustrating because you want to get the transfer done," Bent recalls. "Harry clearly didn’t want me to stay, I didn’t want to stay and Sunderland wanted to sign me, but I was sitting in limbo not doing anything."
"At Spurs, I got on the plane for our pre-season tour and said, 'Why am I going to China? I’m clearly going to Sunderland.' I had to get off the plane again, but the worst part was that I didn’t sign until Spurs got back."
"I couldn’t train at Spurs and I couldn’t go to Sunderland, so I was sat in my hotel room, doing absolutely nothing. I felt like they were trying to railroad me into going to Stoke or Hull, but I’d already spoken to Steve Bruce and I wanted to play for him."
"I haven’t seen Daniel Levy for a long time, and if I saw him now we’d probably catch up and get on well. But at the time, he had to understand my frustration."
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