Why Capello's biggest World Cup blunder was snubbing Darren Bent

By Brian McNally

Published 12:15 07/08/10

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Darren Bent is a man with a mission this season- to score enough goals to convince Fabio Capello to give him a regular berth in the England team.

The Sunderland striker was snubbed by the Italian this summer when he was left out of the England World Cup squad despite scoring 24 Premier League goals.

And Bent admits that he almost quit international football in disappointment. Now after a pep talk from his club boss Steve Bruce, the six-times capped goal ace is raring to go again.

And the likelihood that Capello favourite Emile Heskey has finally fallen out of favour should open the door for Bent to be handed a chance in Wednesday's friendly against Hungary at Wembley.

England's coach has been heavily criticised for his squad selection and including injured players such as Ledley King, semi-fit stars like Gareth Barry, Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney and  struggling,out-of-form striker Heskey all turned out badly for England.

But his biggest blunder was leaving Bent at home when there were major doubts about the fitness of Rooney.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that despite Bent's phenomenal scoring record in the top flight last term - Rooney was the only Englishman who scored more - Capello simply didn't fancy him.

Bizarely, even with Rooney going into the tournament  still recovering from  injury problems, Capello was willing to blank the most in-form, prolific English striker available to  partner the Manchester United front man.

Even more difficult to comprehend is that Capello actually thought  the lumbering Heskey- hardly able to get a game with Aston Villa- was the man for the job.

We should remind ourselves that Heskey's scoring record for England is a woeful goal every eight games or so, while he scored just three goals for his club all season.

Capello made many awful selection decisions in the build-up to the World Cup but the inclusion of Heskey over Bent was by some distance the worst.

Bruce believes that Bent will benefit from not being tainted by the World Cup humiliation and will set out to pile up the evidence to show that Capello got it spectacularly wrong.

Hopefully, this season Capello will give an extended run in the national side to a striker who surely can't do nay more to make his case at Premier League level.

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