Has Christian Benteke made a mistake by staying at Aston Villa?

Paul Lambert feels that Benteke still has much to learn

The gut reaction most people come up with is “no”.

One thing is for sure, he doesn’t deserve to be playing at a bigger club. The kid has had a very successful first season in the premier league, but it is exactly that; one season. Nobody can say a player is worthy of playing European club football on the back of a single season of success, no matter how prolific. Benteke’s own manager, Paul Lambert, shared that sentiment when he spoke to British radio show ‘TalkSport’ about his Belgian striker back in May:

“Sometimes we’ve got to have a reality check here…[Benteke has] had one of those seasons where he’s never really been injured and he’s never been suspended except the last day. He’s only a kid starting out and he’s going to have ups and downs like everybody else. Once he starts to play 400 or 500 games you might think, ‘yeah, he’s a good player’. It’s a unique thing, and he’s got to remember that he’s only 22 years of age – he’s got so much to learn. This lad’s only been in Britain for 10 months.”

Lambert is exactly right. It takes time to earn the right to want away, and Benteke has yet to earn that right.

However, whether Benteke deserved a transfer and whether he should have actually done it are two entirely separate matters. Regardless of what we as sports fans think the ethics of the situation are, Benteke did have the opportunity to walk away from Villa Park this summer. Pushing away what onlookers think is “right” for a second, let’s look at this from Benteke’s own point of view.

Imagine it. You are the 4th most prolific goal scorer in the EPL in what is usual a striker’s most difficult season; the inaugural one. You are only 22 years old and have not yet entered your prime as a football player. On top of that, your club supposedly values you at £25M, a price tag reserved for truly exceptional talents. How, then, can it really be smart for you to stay with a club that came within two games of spending this coming season in the nPower Championship? If you were Benteke, would you walk away?

By having such a prolific season in 2012/13, Benteke easily has the credentials to attract a bigger move elsewhere. We already know that Tottenham were interested, and now that most of the other top strikers in Europe are off the market (Cavani, Falcao, Lewandowski, Negrado), you can bet that a number of other clubs needing a goal scorer would have been sniffing around. And there are plenty of clubs that need a goal scorer.

By staying put at Aston Villa, he has missed a big opportunity here to join one of Europe’s elite. Moreover, he runs the risk that he may never get an opportunity like this again. Think about what Paul Lambert has said. He didn’t get injured, he didn’t get suspended. What if he does next season? What if he suffers the sort of injury that players just never fully recover from? What if he doesn’t gel with his teammates next year? Anything could happen, and if he does have a bad season, through injury or poor performance, it will be far more difficult for him to get that dream move.

But even worse than that, he might have hurt his chances of starting for Belgium in the World Cup next year. As soon as the pending EPL season draws to a close, Benteke will be packing his bags and flying to Brazil along with dozens of other top footballers for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. And if you think Benteke isn’t thinking about that, think again. The striker admitted back in May that he had one eye on Brazil when he told The Sun that “Of course playing in the World Cup in Rio is in my head”.