SOCCER:A price tag of €28 million for a mediocre striker says a lot about the general standard of football in England this season, writes MICHAEL WALKER

THE HEADLINE on the front of one of Tuesday’s sport sections was: “Has the world gone mad?” Beside it was a photograph of a man in a red and white striped shirt and the words: “Darren Bent becomes a £24 million striker.”

The headline encapsulated the feeling of shock that had shaken English football. It is a body not unused to shock.

But £24 million (€28.2 million)? Darren Bent? Inflation is a threat in this precarious financial world but this is something else.

There has been a hullabaloo ever since, with Sunderland and Steve Bruce complaining about Bent, Villa and Gerard Houllier, as if Sunderland or Bruce had never been party to a transfer that emerged with an exclamation mark having been done hush-hush behind the scenes.

Sunderland and Villa can get on with that, who did what and when. The rest of us will still be in shock at the tag of £24 million and what it says about the standard of football in England this season. This transfer is one of its defining moments, that’s for sure.

What does it say when Bent, whose first touch is sometimes an accident, is likely to surpass Rio Ferdinand as, cumulatively, the most expensive English footballer in its history? It says there is not enough talent and that the headline could have been: “Has the world gone mediocre?”

Bent is not a bad footballer, but he is not a brilliant one. He has at Sunderland shown a happy knack for being in the right place in the right time and scored the goals last season that kept the club in the Premier League and meant they could build again. In that context, at £10 million (€11.8 million) from Tottenham, he has proved his value and anyone who could “score” the balloon goal against Liverpool, as Bent did, has something going for him.

Sunderland managed 48 goals in the league last season; Bent scored 24 of them. He played all 38 Premier League games, the only Sunderland player to do so. He was reliable on a couple of fronts.

These are impressive figures yet none of England’s Champions League clubs lined up to sign him. He did not make England’s World Cup squad. When a club did express an interest it was Fenerbahce, runners-up in Turkey last season.

Now Villa have bought him but from a position just outside the bottom three.

Sunderland have gone into scramble mode to replace Bent. Ricardo Fuller is expected to arrive from Stoke.

Fuller, experienced and battle-hardened, will “do a job” as they say but Bruce and his scouting team may just be sitting around wondering where all the strikers have gone.

If they do look outside the Premier League, they see Watford’s Danny Graham is the leading scorer in the Championship.

Graham is 25 and did not make it at Middlesbrough. He joined Watford from Carlisle. Graham will have his own story to tell but Bruce and others will have looked at his past and reached conclusions.

One of those may be that Sunderland move for the Championship’s next top-scorer, Jay Bothroyd. Bothroyd is 28 and is said to have a grand opinion of himself. He won his first England cap in November. What does that say? It ties in to the theory that while it is exciting that five clubs, including Tottenham, think they can win the Premier League this season, the fact a Manchester United team considered not to be vintage remain undefeated – one which will move six points clear of second place should they win their two games in hand – shows standards have slipped.

There is no longer the volume of talent there was once. England, not too long after plucking David Nugent from Preston North End, were back scouring the second division and arrived at Bothroyd.

There is a lack of generosity in this theory, given it reduces the impact made particularly by promoted Blackpool and Ian Holloway’s collection of free transfers and low-money signings. Blackpool have proven once again the value of teamwork and perhaps we should ignore a player’s financial cost and just examine his worth.

Darren Bent would do well in that process too. But it is January and it is difficult to see beyond a tag as great as £24 million.

Bent was anonymous last Sunday against Newcastle at the Stadium of Light, and, in the wake of his move to Villa, he has spoken of his preference not to be in the limelight. But all eyes will be on him today when Manchester City go to Villa Park. In fact he won’t be anonymous anymore, even when he isn’t playing. That’s a different price again.

Carson's choice rock bottom

TREVOR CARSON comes from Killyleagh. He also left Sunderland this week, just not in quite the same circumstances as Darren Bent.

Carson, 22, has left to go on loan to Lincoln City and you must admire him for that. Lincoln, The Imps, are 92nd of England’s 92 league clubs.

Carson could have looked at the offer and gone, hmmm. Instead he will this afternoon be at Edgeley Park, Stockport, in what is being described in Lincoln as a six-pointer. Stockport are fourth-bottom and have just sacked their manager Paul Simpson.

A quick assessment of why Lincoln are rock-bottom of the old fourth division: they have scored 17 goals this season in 21 games. They have an obvious problem. And Trevor Carson is a goalkeeper.

Ireland heading for the exit door

THE ARRIVAL of Darren Bent at Aston Villa on a salary estimated at between €3.5 and 4.7 million per annum means players will be heading for the exit door. One of those, they hope – and he probably hopes as well – is Stephen Ireland.

Today could have been the day Ireland proved to Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini what a talent he had at his disposal. But Ireland has not appeared for Villa since the 3-0 humiliation at Anfield nearly seven weeks ago and is now the subject of negotiations.

They centre on removing Ireland's alleged €3.5 million per annum from the Villa wage bill. The trouble is that just as Villa were bent on doing not so long ago, other clubs are fighting to reduce their wages-to-turnover ratio and will not sanction this sort of spending. Newcastle United are interested in Ireland, along with one other Premier League club, but Newcastle will not pay Ireland's full salary even for the next four months.

So there is a stand-off. Villa play again quickly, on Tuesday night at Wigan. So there's likely to be nothing done before then unless someone agrees to all Villa's demands – and Ireland's. Come Wednesday morning, it's panic on.