Soapbox: Blackpool rocks, Bent saga rolls on

  

With a long wait before our next game, we must now endure a week of speculation about comings and goings (surely Ricardo Fuller, a sub more often than he starts at Stoke, is not really demanding £60,000 a week as reported today; what will Mr Bent make of that?). Pete Sixsmith, has all these things in mind as he returns from a happy trip to the seaside… 

That’s more like it. After a week where of non stop chat from players, managers and fans, we finally got down to what the game is all about – actually playing football. 

Some (final) comments on the DB situation. I don’t think anyone has come out of this particularly well. 

Certainly Bent has lost the respect of those who have supported him since he arrived forlorn and unwanted in August 2009. Villa protested a little too much that they have done nothing wrong and give me the impression of wanting it all ways. Houllier’s analogy about buying a house is ridiculous. I can’t persuade my pile of bricks and mortar to stay with me. 

I’m afraid that Steve Bruce hasn’t come out of it very well either. Playing the loyalty card is ok for Ferguson or Dario Gradi, but for a manger who moves around and takes players and staff with him, it’s not really advisable. Let it go, Steve. We move on. 

The fans sat in the permanent temporary stand at Bloomfield Road made it clear what they thought of DB, but they are Sunderland through and through. Bent is from another part of the country and works as a professional footballer. I think what stuck in the craw of many was him constantly saying how much he thought of the club and the fans. Let’s have no more of this nonsense. These guys are here to make money and if ours is insufficient, there will always be someone down the road who will pay them a teeny-weeny bit more. 

http://salutsunderland.com/2011/01/soapbox-blackpool-rocks-bent-saga-rolls-on/#more-19018