page_title: Darren Bent
section_title: Tottenham Hotspur
hierarchical_section_title: Darren Bent / Club career / Tottenham Hotspur
caption_attribution_description: English: Darren Bent training with Tottenham Hotspur ahead of their match against Peterborough United at London Road Stadium, Peterborough on 21 July 2009
context_page_description: Darren Ashley Bent is an English former professional footballer who played as a striker. He played in the Premier League and Football League for nine clubs, and at senior international level for the England national team.
  Bent started his career with Godmanchester Rovers before being scouted by Ipswich Town. After progressing through their youth system, he made his first-team debut in 2001. He made 122 appearances and scored 48 goals in the league for Ipswich, before joining Charlton Athletic for a fee of £2.5 million in 2005. He was Charlton Athletic's top goalscorer for two consecutive seasons and joined Tottenham Hotspur for a club-record fee of £16.5 million in 2007. After two seasons at Tottenham, he joined Sunderland. After a successful 18 months at Sunderland, he joined Aston Villa in 2011. Bent had loans with Fulham, Brighton & Hove Albion and Derby County, and after being released by Villa in 2015, joined Derby permanently.
  Bent represented England at under-15, under-16, under-19, under-21 and senior levels. He made 14 appearances and scored 9 goals for the under-21 team after making his debut against Italy in 2003.
context_section_description: Bent completed a move to Tottenham Hotspur for a club-record fee of £16.5 million on 29 June 2007, which was to be payable over three years and is inclusive of add-on payments. Ipswich were entitled to 20% of Charlton's profit on Bent under a sell-on clause, which gave the club an initial £2.58 million. He scored his first competitive goal for Tottenham in a 4–0 home victory over Derby County in August 2007. This was followed up by scoring in the 6–1 win over Anorthosis Famagusta in the first round of the UEFA Cup on 20 September 2007. Bent was an unused substitute for the 2008 League Cup Final at Wembley Stadium on 24 February, as Tottenham beat Chelsea 2–1 after extra time. He scored his 100th career goal on 9 March 2008 in the added time of a 4–0 league win over West Ham. He also scored the 100th goal to be scored at White Hart Lane during 2007–08 on 22 March in a 2–0 win over Portsmouth. Bent went on to score one more goal in the 2007–08 season, against Newcastle United, which he finished with 36 appearances and 8 goals.
  Bent scored 12 goals for Tottenham during the 2008–09 pre-season. His first league goal of the season came against Chelsea, which gave his team a 1–1 draw. He scored a header in the second half of Tottenham's UEFA Cup first round match against Wisła Kraków, giving the team a 2–1 victory. On 6 November, in a match against Dinamo Zagreb, Bent scored his first competitive hat-trick for Tottenham. He followed this up with two goals in a 2–1 victory against Manchester City at the City of Manchester Stadium.
  A miss in front of an open goal in the final minutes during a home match against Portsmouth in January 2009, which cost Tottenham two points, prompted manager Harry Redknapp to claim, "You will never get a better chance to win a match than that. My missus could have scored that one." On 31 January, Bent scored two goals in the period of two minutes against Bolton Wanderers at the Reebok Stadium after coming on as a second-half substitute, in a match that eventually finished as a 3–2 defeat. Following the return of striker Robbie Keane at Tottenham, Redknapp assured Bent of his future at the club. He finished the season as Tottenham's top goalscorer with 17 goals in 43 matches.
caption: Bent training with Tottenham Hotspur in 2009
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