Tottenham's David Bentley should take a lesson in perseverance from Robbie Keane

By Brian Reade

Published 22:06 30/10/09

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The summer before last, two big-money stars blinked into the flashbulbs and declared their life-long love for a pair of birds.

David Bentley for a cockerel, Robbie Keane for a liver bird. "Dream moves" they called transfers to clubs they'd supported since foetus-hood. But the dreams turned out to be ones where you walk to the bus stop in the nude with the world laughing at your dangly bits.

Liverpool shipped Keane back to Spurs within six months, taking a £5 million hit and leaving themselves with only one quality striker to chase titles at home and abroad.

Bentley, meanwhile, hit a 45-yard volley-of-the-decade contender against Arsenal and appeared to be heading for the Spurs hall of fame. That was a year ago this weekend. He hasn't scored a Premier League goal since. Instead he disappeared off the radar, and would have disappeared out of White Hart Lane if any club had been prepared to pay his wages.

If the mark of a man is how you respond to adversity then Keane and Bentley are textbook studies in manhood.

For any player, particularly one of Keane's age and status, to be bought for £20 million then flogged back to his old club at the first opportunity is brutally humiliating. Especially when many fans, angry at him walking out, made it known they didn't want him back. Especially when Rafa Benitez hinted he'd struggled to cope with playing at such a big club.

Keane refused to let the stick from Spurs fans get to him or enter into a slanging match with Benitez, despite having every reason to. Instead he got his head down, and delivered. With Ireland he became the top scorer in their World Cup group, his five goals taking them into next month's play-offs. With Spurs his 12 in 26 strike-rate has helped them into the top four.

When the going got tough Keane got going. Reminding us all what a genuine Football Man he is. A man who seems to have been around for ever but isn't yet 30. A man who adds a work ethic and a humility to a special talent, which is why he remains in the affections of all the fans he's played for, and is widely admired among neutrals.

Even at Anfield he scored some gems, none better than that beaut at the Emirates. He returns there today as a leader in gladiatorial mood, with bold words declaring Spurs better than Arsenal in every department.

Due to Aaron Lennon's injury, David Bentley also returns to his one scene of glory in a Spurs shirt. With the words waste of money and chronic under-achiever set to ring out from the stands with every poor touch.

He may defy the critics today, and even go on to become a proper footballer again. Yet he will only do so by realising that it's fine to be a cocky showman but you have to keep proving there is substance behind your swagger.

That you need to be at your strongest when you are at your lowest. That you will always be judged, not on a goal you scored last year or what someone said about you last week, but what you're going to do on the pitch today.

If inspiration is required, he need look no further than his own captain.

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