Charlton end wait for Bent

Daily Mail14 April 2012

England Under 21 star Darren Bent said his former Ipswich skipper Matt Holland persuaded him to sign for Charlton Athletic on a four-year deal.

The London club paid £2.5million for Ipswich's 19-goal striker, rising to £3m based on appearances and England caps.

Bent, who has refused to discuss a long-term contract at Ipswich since Charlton manager Alan Curbishley tried to buy him last summer, said: 'I spoke to Matty and I know Hermann (Hreidarsson) is enjoying himself here. They both said it's a fantastic club to play for and when you hear those kind of things from players of that experience you take notice.

'It was an opportunity I couldn't turn down. Curbs has told me that it's up to me to take my chance when it comes and I know that, with the amount of strikers at this club, I'm going to need to do that.'

Curbishley tracked Bent for two years and when Ipswich lost to West Ham in the play-offs last month, their chairman, David Sheepshanks, 'reluctantly' agreed to sell him.

'Last summer we didn't sell Darren, instead taking a calculated risk in retaining him in the hope that he would score the goals to take us to the Premiership. It very nearly worked - but not quite,' he said.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in