After closing in on the capture of Peter Crouch, Harry Redknapp is ready to offload England international Darren Bent to Sunderland. Bent has not travelled with the rest of the Tottenham squad to their pre-season tour to China, instead he has chosen to go to the North East to discuss terms with Steve Bruce’s Sunderland.
The England striker believes that first team football is quintessential in the season leading to the World Cup in South Africa and that Sunderland would provide him with an opportunity to start regularly. Bent is keen to move away from White Hart Lane but the 15 million pound price tag slapped on him by Harry Redknapp is way above Sunderland’s evaluation and is proving to be a stumbling block.
When asked about the possibility of signing Bent, Bruce told The Sunderland Echo, “It’s one we are visiting but we can’t wait around forever.”We are still a bit short – way off in terms of valuation at the moment. We will look at it, but if we can’t agree we can’t agree.”We will move on to the next one because we can’t go on forever. We are not making much headway.”
Meanwhile, Tottenham themselves have inched closer to completing the Crouch deal for 10 million pounds. Tottenham was Crouch’s first professional club and this will be his second spell at the London club.
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