Bent bags Player of the Month award

Charlton striker Darren Bent has been named the Barclays Player of the Month for August.

The 21-year-old arrived at The Valley in a £3m deal from Ipswich over the summer, and announced his return to the top flight with a double in the 3-1 victory over Sunderland on the opening day of the new Barclays Premiership season.

That was followed by a surprise call-up into the full national squad for the friendly against Denmark, and two more goals to help beat Wigan and Middlesbrough as Charlton maintained their 100% start to the campaign.

The enthusiasm of the England Under-21 striker has been welcomed at The Valley, and manager Alan Curbishley revealed Bent was keen to join in with the rest of his team-mates at their Sparrow’s Lane training complex following his return from international duty in the early hours of Thursday morning.

“Benty has come back home at 3am and wanted to train – which is great,” said the Charlton manager.

“But we have said to him, ‘you have had that for 10 days, now you are back here and on Friday morning you come in ready for Birmingham’.”

Charlton also had captain Luke Young included in the full England squad for the World Cup qualifiers against Wales and Northern Ireland.

But while pleased at the kudos such status brings to the south-east London club, Curbishley is keen to keep everything in perspective.

“I’m a little concerned for Benty in that it’s all happened in a month,” said the Addicks boss.

“We won three games and he scored four then all of a sudden he’s in the England squad.

“I would like to have kept it under wraps a little bit, but he’s been lively and fresh and that’s gone onto the pitch.”