As Kevin Keegan pointed out in another good week for ESPN, the �24m man will score plenty of goals for his new club
I do not like restaurants where the waiter asks: "Have you eaten here before?" It implies a system you have to fit into, clearly for the benefit of the restaurant rather than the diner, and reminds me of that awkward first day at a new office, when someone has to tell you where the toilets are and who to see if you want a new pen.
And yes, I am talking about Nando's, where you take your seat as if it were a proper restaurant and then they tell you: "Nah, we're only joking, it's like McDonald's really. You have to order at the counter."
For some reason, Nando's is a favourite among Premier League footballers. Regular listeners to BBC Five Live's Fighting Talk will know my one recent brush with fame was when I saw Aaron Lennon in Nando's. (He was having the chicken.) Maybe the guy at the counter who explains the various sauce options, combo possibilities and tactics with the side orders is like a kind of substitute gaffer. So it was no surprise to find that the ubiquitous chain of retail-park poultry pushers is a favourite of Aston Villa's new �18m (rising to �24m) man, Darren Bent. Bent is in many ways the Nando's of the Premier League, a reliable goal?scoring brand.
The constant iteration over the past week of the statistic that Bent has outscored every striker in the Premier League bar Wayne Rooney and Didier Drogba showed that Villa's acquisition was no high street pop-up Thai curry joint that might sparkle for a week or two before the head chef jacks it in, they forget to bring your drinks and you have to send your prawn laksa back. As Kevin Keegan pointed out during ESPN's live match on Saturday, Bent will score goals but very few of them will come with spicy sauce. "He won't be scoring spectacular goals from outside the area but he'll always be there for the little tap-ins," said Keegan. Rarely can a pundit have had such instant vindication.
The gods appear to be smiling on ESPN lately ? and on Talksport, who have exclusive radio commentary on the Saturday teatime fixture ? presenting big stories in successive weeks: Avram Grant's non-sacking and Bent's debut. Keegan is a plus, although in general ESPN is not great at filling the unforgiving minutes before kick-off.
The BBC's Match of the Day team attract a deal of unfair criticism, but if you watch ESPN for any length of time you will soon recognise the wisdom of the BBC in choosing Gary Lineker as its main presenter rather than, say, Ray Stubbs. You only really appreciate Lineker's lightness of touch when you watch other perfectly adequate hosts going through their presenting?by?numbers routine in the lead?up to an event. I do enjoy Jon Champion's commentary on ESPN, though. He is undeniably the Barry Davies de nos jours, which not everyone will see as a positive.
Like Davies, he can be opinionated and is good with goals, instinctively choosing the right moment to whoop it up ? "Kolarov with that hammer of a left fooooooot," was his commentary on Manchester City's clinching goal in the FA Cup replay against Leicester City. He can also be relied upon for the odd quirky comment on a crowd shot. "Some people just can't wait," he said over pictures of Villa fans eating pies a quarter of an hour before half-time.
If Keegan put in a solid, no-nonsense, chargrilled-chicken-breast-with-a-side-salad performance on ESPN, the pundit of the week was Gordon Strachan on ITV's coverage of the Leeds United v Arsenal Cup replay. Quizzed on Eric Cantona's appointment as director of soccer at New York Cosmos, Strachan damned his former Leeds team-mate with the faintest of praise, saying he has "an aura, a presence" but adding: "I don't know about his social skills, interacting with people. That could be a problem. The first time anyone says 'no' to him he could be back on the first plane to France." That cast some light on Howard Wilkinson's decision to offload the Frenchman to Manchester United.
Asked by the presenter Adrian Chiles if Leicester's Paul Gallagher had found the holy grail of penalty taking the previous evening, by standing with his back to the ball and then twisting round quickly to knock it in, Strachan said: "If it works, it's good. It's like comedy, if you get a laugh it works." Though you would not normally turn to a football manager for comedy advice, Strachan may be the exception, as his further comment on Gallagher's powerful shot showed: "There's a man determined not to be in a pizza advert," said Strachan, who happened to be sitting next to Gareth Southgate at the time. That is timing.
Finally, regular readers will know of my puzzlement over part works. Who is buying them? The latest to be advertised during the football is Endeavour, a weekly magazine inviting you to build a scale model of Captain Cook's ship "in stunning detail". A bit of the model comes each week. "Complete in 100 parts," says the ad. Excuse me, but that is a hell of a commitment at a time when you are lucky if your job comes with more than a six-month contract. How many footy fans will sign up for two years sticking little bits of Captain Cook's Endeavour together? The inescapable conclusion is that somebody has been putting the glue to its alternative use.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/jan/24/darren-bent-aston-villa-nandos
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