Before we start, I’m just going to make you aware that I’ve never been the biggest fan of Bentley anyway, but – like if Diouf puts on a Hammers shirt – I backed him when he came to West Ham.
But now he’s been hit by an injury, will we actually miss him? My instinct answer is no. I don’t think he had enough time to make a big enough impact to actually miss him for one thing – he made a handful of appearances for a side who had already enjoyed romps over other clubs in the division without him.
Bentley may be more attack minded than some of our midfield, but Taylor and Faubert get a lot of activity down the wings so I don’t think he’ll be a huge loss. Anyway, he may well have been another one of Harry’s ‘agents’ set to ruin our promotion hopes – and what a way to argue that we shouldn’t have the Olympic Stadium if we weren’t in the top league. Paranoid? Me?
Also, he didn’t seem to play with the passion and desire that other loanee Henri Lansbury displayed. I was at his debut against Portsmouth, and he didn’t seem that desperate to impress – and as he was meant to be at West Ham to rebuild his career, that was a bit of a worry.
However, he would have at the very least provided good injury cover and maybe some fight for the position of right midfield which seems to automatically go to Faubert. Also, Bentley has scored some wonder goals in the past – who can forget his goal that was crowned goal of the season in 2008? He’s also good at set pieces, but we do have Taylor to provide that service.
All in all, I really don’t think Bentley was a huge asset to begin with, so I don’t think we’ll miss him.
