Steve Bruce has spent several days indulging in some pretty public wound licking over this whole Darren Bent business. He’s entitled to express his dismay of course, but he might be better served by focusing his attentions on finding a replacement.
The Black Cat boss has a mountain to climb and the January window is always far, far leaner than the August one.
It has emerged in the past few days that Sulley Muntari is one name at the top of Bruce’s list. The Bent transfer money has to be spent somewhere and with the former Pompey man valued at a shade under £10M …he’d be ideal to revitalise the Sunderland.
And that’s the problem. Muntari would be so ideal for a Premiership return that Harry Redknapp wants him to sign for Tottenham.
Redknapp was in Spain last week and the word is that him getting a striker out of the country would prove as difficult as catching the guys that picked his and Kev Bond’s pocket. Benzema seems to be a pawn in a chess game between Jose Mourinho and Real Madrid’s owners and Forlan wants pay packet busting money in wages.
Harry and Sulley are old pals of course and the Tottenham manager does seem to have a magic touch when it comes to getting the best out of these types of players. But does Harry really need yet another midfielder?
One crumb of comfort for Bruce might be that Spurs are probably looking to offload Roman Pavyluchenko if they can sign a new striker. Pav has won a place in the hearts of many fans at White Hart Lane but not seemingly, Harry’s.
The fee for Roman is likely to be £13.8M, but surely he’s a better option than Muntari? On paper perhaps, but the Russian has scored some memorable goals simply hasn’t scored enough.
Will Bruce end up dropping £4M more than he wants to on a ‘lesser man’? We’ll know sooner rather than later.
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