LONDON: England striker Darren Bent found himself in hot water after apparently using internet networking site Twitter to blast Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy for failing to rubber-stamp his proposed move to Sunderland.

Bent, 25, went online to hit out at Levy as his move to Sunderland drags on.

A Twitter account in Bent's name on Thursday carried a series of scathing attacks on Levy, who is said to be playing hardball with the Black Cats over the fee for player.

"Seriously getting p***ed off now," read the first message.

Bent then went on to add: "Why can't anything be simple? "Sunderland are not the problem in the slightest.

"Do I wanna go Hull City? NO. Do I wanna go Stoke? NO. Do I wanna go Sunderland YES." It is thought Levy is attempting to recoup the 16.5 million pounds that Tottenham paid to sign Bent from Charlton two years ago, while Sunderland were hoping to pay 14 million pounds.

The move had seemed to be imminent when Bent was pulled off Tottenham's trip to China just before the club's plane took off on Monday, but little progress has been made since.

On Friday, the account in Bent's name was removed from Twitter. Anyone logging in to the account, db10thetruth, found a message saying 'This page does not exist'.

Sunderland boss Steve Bruce admits the deal is in the balance and he fears another club, possibly Aston Villa, could make a last-ditch bid to snatch Bent.

Someone says Darren has been Twittering," Bruce told the Sunderland Echo. "I don't even know what that is, but I have seen a few things in the papers about it.

"Footballers aren't just objects. There's a human being in this who is obviously caught up in the middle and wants his future sorted out. The situation at the moment is that the clubs are still talking.

"We thought we had a deal done a couple of days ago and it has not quite materialised.

"We're still hopeful that we can agree a fee with Spurs, but at the moment there's a couple of other clubs showing an interest.

"We will do our utmost to get the deal over the line. I would say I was really confident that would happen a couple of days ago, but now I'd say it's 50-50."