England door still open for Darren Bent

Nov 17 2009 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

Darren Bent's World Cup chances are far from over - despite the clamour to write off Sunderland's top scorer. Mark Douglas reports.

IF there is one thing that the past four months has taught us about Darren Bent, it is that he functions best when feeding off the belief that others have in him.

Powered by the faith of Steve Bruce, the Sunderland striker has barged his way to the top of the Premier League scoring charts and made questions over his eight-figure fee a trifling irrelevance.

After this weekend’s trickiest of engagements in Qatar, the affable Bent now has to conquer that same uncertainty about his international aspirations.

Alongside Wayne Rooney but as part of a shadow England side, Bent got less than an hour against a Brazil side bristling with as much defensive fortitude as they had attacking brio.

He delivered no more than the minimum that Fabio Capello would have expected. Some of his movement was excellent and his work-rate in the baking heat was the equal of any of his team-mates. But his attacking impact was negligible and he failed to dovetail effectively with Rooney – England’s one world-class player, but a man so delightfully unpredictable that he becomes fiendishly difficult to operate alongside.

That seems to have been enough for some onlookers to write off his World Cup chances but regular Sunderland observers have seen enough from him to know that the game is far from up for a striker as lethal as any Englishman on his day. He failed to breach the Brazilian resistance but the argument that he is not capable of scoring against the best is inaccurate.

Goals against Manchester United and Liverpool – albeit with the aid of a handily-placed beach ball – are proof that he has no trouble plundering against the best defences.

That is what Capello, a man acutely aware of the importance of form, will be watching from now until July.

Bent is unfortunate that his two chances under Capello have coincided with mass withdrawals from the England squad.

It has left him playing in front of a scratch midfield packed with players who are themselves out of form, and simply incapable of providing the ammunition for England’s front men.

Besides, England are not blessed with enough striking talent to easily write off a player with his attacking armoury.

Even assuming that Rooney, the barren but effective Emile Heskey, Jermain Defoe and Peter Crouch have four of the five striking places sewn up, the final spot is still there for the taking.

Carlton Cole’s name has been thrust forward as if his bustling style will make him effective against the world’s best, but he was allowed to come back from a friendly performance in Spain last season that was no different from Bent’s on Saturday. And, unlike Sunderland’s front man, there remain question marks over the fitness of the West Ham forward.

As if he needed reminding, Capello need only study England’s recent World Cup history to discover the problems with picking players with questionable fitness pedigree.

Michael Owen is the wild card option but Capello is right to silence the debate about the former Newcastle United man.

His powers are severely diminished and his starts for Manchester United have come against the lesser lights.

It will surprise no St James’ Park regular who was tortured by Owen’s consistently sub-par displays in a black and white shirt that when Sir Alex Ferguson needs goals in big games, the diminutive front man is usually left on the bench.

So the message that Bent communicated sensibly in his post-match interviews was correct – make Sunderland his priority and if goals continue to flow it will make him difficult to ignore.

The real beneficiary may end up being Bruce. A motivated Bent, given a taste of international football again, has the potential to end up being the first Sunderland player to reach the landmark 20-goal figure by the end of the season – and it would take a brave man to ignore his claims then.

If Bent has been harshly judged following England’s latest friendly misfire, then Capello has perhaps been let off lightly.

The excellent work that the Italian has done thus far is beyond question, but England’s advances on his watch do not obscure a mounting list of problems as the World Cup approaches over the horizon.

The scintillating demolition of Croatia that booked their place in South Africa aside, form this season has been worryingly patchy.

Two unconvincing friendlies against Holland and Brazil can be partially discounted because of widespread withdrawals, but a virtually full-strength England were defeated by a mediocre Ukraine last month. And while Bent was unjustly written off on the basis of 54 minutes in Doha, mainstays of the side like Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard and Heskey have delivered successive below-par displays that will have Capello hastily revisiting his Plan B.

Perhaps the biggest concern of all remains the fitness of David James, the nation’s number one and the obvious solution to Capello’s pressing goalkeeping headache. The revelation that a niggling knee injury leaves James unable to train for two days after games makes risking him during an intense, gruelling World Cup schedule a huge gamble.

In his absence, options are limited. Robert Green was progressing serenely until he became the first England goalkeeper to be sent off in the Ukraine, Ben Foster – now third choice at Manchester United – is not of sufficient class yet while Paul Robinson and Scott Carson both have previous at international level.

If he is casting around for an in-form keeper with experience and the right temperament, Capello could do a lot worse than study the claims of Newcastle United’s Steve Harper in greater detail.