Darren Bent’s sudden exit has left everyone at Sunderland feeling shell-shocked, but Anton Ferdinand has argued the players have already come to their senses. Chief sports writer Luke Edwards reports

POST-TRAUMATIC stress disorder occurs after an upsetting experience and normally takes weeks, months or even years to recover from. In extreme cases, it is incurable.

Sunderland will be living with those side-effects for months to come, but only time will tell how nasty it will be as they prepare for life without Darren Bent.

Given his standing on Wearside and reputation as Sunderland’s star striker, the loss of Bent to Aston Villa this week was a particularly unpleasant moment for the club and its fans, yet it also stung his former team-mates. When Bent handed in a written transfer request just hours after an utterly ineffective performance in Sunday’s 1-1 draw with Newcastle United, it hit those who considered themselves friends, as well as colleagues, hard.

Although the normally effervescent striker had not been his usual self in matches and strangely quiet and withdrawn, even sulky and surly, in training, nobody saw the bomb coming. When it exploded, there were plenty caught in the blast.

Nobody in the dressing room had been given any indication Bent was looking for an escape route and when the rumours were confirmed, Sunderland’s players were as stunned and hurt as anyone.

It left a painful wound, but according to Anton Ferdinand, it is also one which has healed remarkably quickly. For all of their faults, footballers are a resilient bunch and Bent’s decision to leave is neither condemned, criticised or even worried about.

They did not know Bent was going to go, but neither were they completely surprised when he did. Something had not been right for weeks and when a player leaves, the mourning is short lived.

“When you are in a dressing room, and around things, you know what’s going on,” said Ferdinand. “From the outside, people don’t always see what’s going on in the dressing room, so when it comes out into the media, its a big surprise.

“Things get blown out of proportion, but when you’re on the inside involved in it all, you see the bigger picture and take it in your stride.

“The events of the last few days have surprised everyone, but this is football and we have to move on as a club.

“Our focus as a squad now is the Blackpool game and that’s all were thinking about.

“It’s been an eventful season, but that’s what Sunderland is about isn’t it? We just have to concentrate on winning as many games as we can between now and the end of the season and then seeing where we end up.”

Given Sunderland’s injury list and the controversial departure of Bent, Sunderland’s squad is being stretched far too thinly and the Black Cats would appear to have a ready made excuse for any dip in form.

The home defeat to Notts County in the FA Cup, the struggle to get a draw at home to Newcastle United the following weekend, all suggest at a Sunderland slide which took another plunge when Bent decided to head towards a lucrative exit door.

Ferdinand has other ideas. He said: “If you can’t deal with distractions, you won’t be able to play in the Premier League.

“If you go into a game at the Stadium of Light, playing in front of 40,000 people week in, week out, you’re going to make a mistake.

“When that happens, you have to be able to deal with it and move on.

“You can’t allow any external things to dwell in your mind. When things happen in your life or in the dressing room, you can’t let it affect you as a big shock. You just have to say, Okay then, it’s happened, let’s move on with things.

“I can only speak for myself, but I don’t make excuses for anything. When something has been my fault, I hold my hand up.

“If I haven’t performed well, I haven’t performed well, simple as that. We can’t use what’s happened this week, or what’s happened at any stage of this season, as an excuse. As a squad, were looking at the positives, not looking for an excuse.”

Sunderland response to Bent’s sale has been rapid and they have enquired about several Premier League strikers in an effort to find someone to fill the void. Sunderland have made an enquiry on the asking price of at least four strikers – Jay Bothroyd, John Carew, Tunçay (pictured left) and Ricardo Fuller – since the start of the week as Bruce spreads his net as wide as he can in order to fill the gaps before the close of the transfer window. And Ferdinand claimed the players were more excited about who will be coming in to replace Bent than concerned about his decision to abandon them for more money in the Midlands.

He said: “The lads want to know who’s coming in, and are excited by it, especially if it’s a top player that’s coming into the club.

“I cant wait to train with any new player and see what they’re about, because when you get close to somebody in training, that’s when you see their quality. I just wait like everyone else to see who’s coming in.”