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Not even a week has gone by since Christian Benteke extended his contract and Paul Lambert is ready to make another striker move for the club. This time, however it's an exit we could be seeing. Newcastle United are reportedly much closer to buying Darren Bent from Villa for something in the region of £5 million. We've known for a while that the Tyneside club are interested in Villa's record signing, but it seems that director of football Joe Kinnear is finally ready to make a move.
What strikes me as particularly interesting about that article is the fact that it claims Fulham dropped out of the running for Bent because his wage demands (£80,000 per week) were too high. That implies to me that Newcastle don't feel the same way. I've operated under the assumption that Aston Villa would probably pick up some of Bent's wages, so this is a nice surprise. Of course, it may come with a reduced transfer fee, but as we've said time and time again, any money for Bent is practically free money.
Bent still definitely has the potential to be a valuable player, and if Newcastle can keep Yohan Cabaye as a source of through-balls to Bent, they might have something. In many ways it's a shame that Bent really needs to leave Villa. He has been, for the most part, a model citizen at the club who unfortunately just does not work with the system in place.