Will he stay or will he go?

By: David | July 8th, 2008

I’ve been away for some time now. At the time of my last post David Bentley looked certain to leave, and yet rumours have been circulating to suggest that he may stay now. We know Ince wants to keep him, backed up by a now higher asking price of £17million (a good amount I’d say). I was watching footage of training the other day where Bentley was involved, laughing and enjoying himself with the players and coaching staff, so maybe he’s had second thoughts.

Certainly we don’t know what will happen, but I’d like to know soon. Bentley is more than our right winger. He’s the source of many of our goals (Bentley to Santa Cruz, goal!) and most of our creativity. Hence where he ends up will totally dictate our transfer policy and style of play next season.

If he stays…

Ince will reportedly have about £13million to spend (the trustees have added more to the kitty and will give more later this season), so a creative player to assist Bentley will be essential in central midfield. This will ease the burden on him, give us more balance, and compensate for any possible drop in form from him if he has lost some focus.

This player would ideally have some flair and be a bit special. We already have in Reid, Vogel, the Axe and (to some extent) Dunn players who can work hard, put in tackles and defend well, so some attacking potency would be nice. Someone who could score goals would be nice too - Santa’s percentage of our total goals scored last season was too high.

I’ve mentioned this kind of player before, and my suggested targets have been hopelessly unrealistic (shows how qualified I am for this blogging job), so I’m asking you guys, who would fulfill the criteria above.

Kaka maybe……..

If he goes…

There are a variety of options, even more (which I won’t explore) if we don’t play 4-4-2:

Logic states we need a right winger, and fast, but it’s easy to forget that we already have a right winger, albeit of a different vein to Bentley: Brett Emerton. Whereas Bentley is nimble and agile, Emerton is more of a bulldoser type. He would offer something different for certain, and Morten Gamst on the left would without doubt have to become the player we know he is, since Emerton is less of a creator and more of a handfull for defenders.

If Brett did step up to the right wing, then we would need a defensively sound right-back. This could be a net increase in quality for us, since Brett has occasionally been defensively suspect. Someone like Moritz Voltz of Fulham would be nice (he’s quite a character too). After this readjustment we would probably have even more money availiable for our central midfielder, assuming Bentley went for around £17million.

Alternatively we could get in a new winger, midfielder and maybe even that right back (all this would marginalise Emerton slightly). Reports are suggesting that Aaron Lennon could be on his way in a swap deal (plus cash or Darren Bent). I like Lennon, though he has been blighted by injury recently. He isn’t very creative (so a midfielder to supply him would be essential), however he’s very very quick and very agile. He’s fun to watch also, though his final ball can be suspect. I certainly think we could do worse in getting a replace for Bentley, and being English is a bonus too (we are short of English players).

So it’s all open ended at the moment, but things are looking far better than they did a month ago.

What do you think?