Darren Ashley Bent (born 6 February 1984) is an English former professional footballer who played as a striker and is currently a radio presenter for talkSPORT. He played in the Premier League and Championship 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. He made his debut for the senior England team in 2006 against Uruguay, and went on to make 13 appearances for England, scoring four goals. He scored his first goal on 7 September 2010 in a 3–1 UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying match victory against Switzerland.
Bent progressed through Ipswich Town's youth system, having joined the club at age 14 in 1998, after considering a possible career in athletics. He signed a professional contract with Ipswich on 2 July 2001. He made his first-team debut on 1 November 2001 in a 3–1 victory against Helsingborg in the UEFA Cup, and scored his first senior goal in a 4–1 League Cup defeat to Newcastle United on 27 November 2001. Bent scored his first Premier League goal on 24 April 2002 in a 1–0 win over Middlesbrough. He finished the 2001–02 season with seven appearances and two goals in all competitions, and also saw his team Ipswich face relegation into the First Division.
He became a key part of Ipswich's first-team squad during the 2002–03 season. He scored his first goal of the season on 24 August, scoring the equalizing goal in a 1–1 draw with Millwall. On 31 October 2002 he scored the winning goal against Slovan Liberec in the UEFA Cup. On 2 March he scored in a 2–0 win against Norwich City in the East Anglian derby. Bent finished the 2002–03 season with 18 goals, while also winning Ipswich's Young Player of the Year award.
Bent signed a new contract with Ipswich on 13 June 2003, signing a deal until June 2006. He continued to feature regularly during the 2003–04 season. On 16 March, he scored a hat-trick in a 3–1 win over Walsall. Ipswich finished 5th in the league in the 2003–04 season, eventually losing out to West Ham United over two legs in the play-offs, with Bent scoring the winning goal in the first-leg as Ipswich won 1–0 at Portman Road, before losing the second-leg 0–2. Bent finished the season as Ipswich's top-scorer with 16 goals.
He once again helped Ipswich challenge for promotion during the following season, continuing his goal scoring form alongside strike partner Shefki Kuqi. Ipswich finished 3rd in the 2004–05 season, narrowly missing out on automatic promotion by two points, before losing out to West Ham United in the play-off semi-finals for the second consecutive season. He finished the season with 20 goals, being the team's joint highest goalscorer along with Shefki Kuqi.
Bent completed a transfer to Charlton Athletic on 1 June 2005, which was worth an initial fee of £2.5 million, but would have risen to £3 million if he made an agreed number of appearances for Charlton and for England. On the opening day of the 2005–06 Premier League season, Bent scored two goals on his Charlton debut against Sunderland, and was named Premier League Player of the Month for August. He scored in his first four appearances for the club, one of only six players to perform this feat in the Premier League. Bent was the highest scoring Englishman in the Premier League in 2005–06, with 18 goals (22 overall), which made him third highest scorer and was given Charlton's Player of the Year award. He signed an extension to his contract at Charlton in July, which contracted him until June 2010. Bent finished 2006–07 with 13 goals in the Premier League, again finishing as Charlton's top goalscorer, but was unable to prevent them from being relegated into the Championship after seven successive seasons of Premier League football. Charlton accepted a bid from West Ham United for him in June 2007, but Bent was not interested in a move to the club.
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.
Sunderland opened negotiations to sign Bent in July 2009. The deal seemed delayed and through social networking website Twitter he accused club chairman Daniel Levy of disrupting his move to Sunderland, although Bent later apologised, saying he acted out of frustration. He travelled to Sunderland to sign for the club after they agreed a fee with Tottenham, and after passing a medical, Bent signed for Sunderland on 5 August for an initial fee of £10 million plus potential additional payments, which later rose to £16.5 million. He scored on his Sunderland debut, which was the only goal in a 1–0 victory against Bolton, and was followed with Sunderland's opening goal against Chelsea in a 3–1 defeat. He scored a brace in the 4–1 win over Hull City to give himself his third and fourth goals in five matches.
Bent scored Sunderland's only goal against Burnley at Turf Moor, making the score 1–1, before losing 3–1. He scored again in a 5–2 win against Wolverhampton Wanderers, although after the match, Sunderland manager Steve Bruce was left angry at Bent's decision to give Sunderland's second penalty kick to teammate Kenwyne Jones, after the latter "pleaded" with Bent to take the penalty so that he could get on the score sheet. Bent scored in a 1–0 victory against Liverpool on 17 October 2009 when his shot hit a beach ball thrown onto the field by a Liverpool fan and past confused goalkeeper Pepe Reina into the net. He scored his first hat-trick for Sunderland in a 4–0 victory over Bolton on 9 March 2010. He scored two goals, one a penalty, but missed two other penalties as they were saved by Heurelho Gomes in a 3–1 victory against former club Tottenham on 3 April. Bent finished the 2009–10 season with 25 goals in 40 appearances in all competitions, 24 of which came in the Premier League, amounting to 50% of Sunderland's 48 goals in the league that season. He was named as Sunderland's Player of the Year.