Marcus Bent Bio Send To Friend  

Marcus Bent's nomadic career took another turn in July 2008 when he signed for Birmingham City for a fee of around £1 million. The striker is strong and powerful.

Bent started his career at Brentford, making 91 appearances and scoring 13 goals to earn a £300,000 move to Crystal Palace in August 1998. The forward struggled, scoring five goals in 31 games, before being offloaded to Port Vale for £375,000 12 months later.

Again he found it tough to really make an impression and was on the move within nine months when signing for Sheffield United for £300,000 in September 1999. It was at Bramall Lane that the pacy player began to find his form. A record of 24 goals in 56 appearances was highly impressive and alerted the attention of Blackburn Rovers.

The ever-changing career of Bent moved on when he penned a £2.1 million transfer to Ewood Park in November 2000. It proved to be a bad move for the striker as he again found himself on the fringes of the first team and left Rovers for Ipswich Town in a £3 million deal.

With Town going down, he then became the latest player to be shipped out of the club when joining Leicester City on a season-long loan on transfer deadline day in September 2003. The striker was an important member of the Foxes side which battled unsuccessfully against relegation.

He returned to Ipswich at the end of the season, but it was only ever a pit-stop before he was sold. Both Portsmouth and West Bromwich Albion showed an interest. Eventually Everton matched Pompey's bid of around £450,000 and he penned a three-year contract at Goodison Park.

In 2005-06, as Everton struggled, he found his chances limited behind James Beattie and opted to move to Charlton when the transfer window opened in January. Linking up with Darren Bent [no relation] he hit only a handful of goals and joined Wigan on loan in August 2007.

He did well at the Latics, but not enough to secure a permanent deal and was placed on the transfer list, before joining Championship side Birmingham. He was a bit-part player in the promotion winning side of 2009-10, but performed an important role in helping the club back to the top flight.

He was loaned to Middlesbrough in October 2009 and then moved on loan again to Queens Park Rangers for the second half of the season.