David Bentley

David Bentley is an English attacking midfielder. He was born in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.

David received a personal invitation from Arsène Wenger when he was 16. The club manager asked him to train with the first team of Arsenal. The footballer began his career as ‘The Gunners’ striker, but later switched to a winger position. In January 2003 Bentley made his debut for his club in The Football Association Challenge Cup match against Oxford United. The player substituted Kolo Touré after 77 minutes of the game. Soon he scored his first goal, chipping the ball in the Football Association Challenge Cup (FA Cup) match against Middlesbrough. The goal was so tremendous that Bentley was compared to Arsenal legend Dennis Bergkamp who had not yet finished his career by that time.

However, the midfielder was sent on loan to gain more playing experience. First he went to Norwich City and then moved to Blackburn Rovers in 2005/2006.

David joined Rovers in August 2005 and the management of the club decided to buy him from Arsenal at the beginning of 2006. The transfer cost €1.75 million. Bentley scored three goals in the first match for the new team, hammering a goalkeeper of Manchester United. Thereby, David became the first player who managed to make a hat trick in a match against ‘The Red Devils’ in his debut game. Blackburn managed to take sixth place in the main English League and make its way through to the 2006/2007 UEFA Cup due to Bentley’s successful performance.

In 2006/2007 he became one of the Rovers’ leaders. David was a regular and often fired very important goals not only in the English Championship, but also in the UEFA Cup. Such kind of progress could not be left unnoticed for long and rather soon there appeared rumours about his signing for one of English top clubs. For example, Manchester United wanted to buy the player, but David decided to stay with his current team and signed a contract with Rovers till 2011. By the end of the season, Bentley had eight goals and 13 assists on his scoresheet and was chosen the Player of the Year. But at the same time, the things did not go well with the club itself. Rovers ended seventh in the Premier League, which meant they couldn’t continue to struggle in the UEFA Cup. Besides, head coach Mark Hughes left for Manchester City. Thereby, Bentley decided to move to another club. In July 2008 he signed a contract with Tottenham. The transfer fee was about £17 million.

Spurs bought the footballer to reinforce its reserves, because the right flank was in the command of Aaron Lennon. Still Bentley had a chance to compete with his countryman, but the coaching staff persisted with putting Lennon in the first team as he started to reveal his skill at the time. Eventually, David lost stable playing practice, because he was given little time on the pitch. However, even in such circumstances the footballer managed to bang in a goal in the match against ‘The Gunners’, which ended in a 4-4 draw. In 2009/2010 Bentley had an opportunity to take the first team place when Lennon was injured. David began to play in the main squad more often and managed to chip in two free kicks in first games and make several assists. But everything did not turn out well for the footballer and he was on the substitutes’ bench again, being supplanted by Lennon, who recovered from his injury.

In January 2011 the midfielder went on a five-month loan to Birmingham City, where he played 13 matches and temporarily strengthened London side West Ham in August the same year, making five appearances for the club. David did not manage to regain his former level in either of the clubs. So Bentley’s transfer turned out to be one of the most disastrous for Tottenham in the last several years and once talented and promising English footballer became almost useless by the age of 27. Both Spurs and Bentley are to blame, because the player failed to go back to his real level in London. Later on David had loan spells with Russian side Rostov and Blackburn Rovers.

In the summe 2013 Bentley was released from The Spurs.

Bentley was called up for the England national U-21 team matches from 2005 till 2007, made eight appearances and kicked four goals. From 2007 he was called up to the Three Lions several times and appeared in 7 games.