Here is a player who is beginning to split opinion. Some still believe he has a valid role to play at Spurs, others (such as myself) believe we should have got rid of him at least two seasons ago. Our problem, of course, seems to have been (and remains) that our scouts simply cannot spot any decent strikers out there. Whilst other clubs - clubs that us Spurs fans look down on - seem to have little problem in finding a "striker" who can justify being labeled such, we have had to suffer the humiliation of being saddled with the worst "strikers" in the league. Few of us will ever forget the debacle we suffered during that season when our three so-called "strikers" (Defoe, Crouch, and Pav) barely mustered double-figures in the Prem, between them. It was an utter disgrace, by any standard that one might care to judge. Little has changed, despite our spending a club record on Soldado. I fear that he make Levy and us a laughingstock for many seasons to come, until we are forced to sell him to Cardiff or Sunderland for whatever we can get for him, in the last year of his contract. Now, I read in the press, that Defoe is bleating that his "England chances" are being damaged by not playing regularly for Spurs. Ordinarily, when a striker isn't performing (such as Soldado for us), it is expected that his understudy is given the chance. However, in Defoe's case, one senses that the management has got fed up with handing chances to Defoe, because he never rises to the challenge. Many slated Darren Bent for only scoring goals in games that we lost, but Defoe, on far too many occasions, doesn't score even in those games. In short, if Defoe's "England chances" are damaged, it's for one very simple reason: he's next to useless. Frankly, I am hoping that AVB/Levy grant Defoe's wish to play regular football and ship him out to QPR or West Ham in the January window. I think he is well past his sell-by date with us, so we cannot expect to get too much for him. £4 million would be fair, I think. Of course, that would mean that we'd need to bring in at least one more striker, in January, and I'm hopeful that our scouts are making all the moves, now, to ensure that happens. But if, as I fully expect, we fail to get someone in, I'd rather see Kane given his chance (as much as I believe that he simply isn't good enough, and never will be), because, with Kane, at least there is always the possibility that he may come good; unfortunately, I no longer feel that way about Defoe. I'd like to say that Defoe has been a good servant for the club, but he's only won the Milk Cup with us (someone correct me if I'm wrong on that), which isn't impressive for a club like us. One major reason why we haven't been competitive over those years is because, unfortunately, we've had players like Defoe in the squad. If we want that to change, we need to get rid of players like Defoe, and move on.
Edit: Merged my thread in as I must've started writing it just before you posted, HIAG. Great minds He signed a new contract last year and said he wanted to finish his career with us. You assume that he understands that he's not going to be first choice if he's going to be saying that but so far this year he's done nothing but grumble about a lack of games. I couldn't believe he started trying to build bridges with West Ham fans recently given the vile taunts about family tragedies that he's put up with from them, it felt like he was angling for a move but maybe he was just trying to be nice. It's been followed with references to not playing enough in every interview he's given which is disappointing to read. What was he expecting when we spent £26mill on a striker? What's more is he's being disrespectful to the manager and those that play alongside him in the cup competitions, because he's been playing quite a lot of football actually so must be not counting his numerous starts in the cups and sub appearances in the league. What really gets me though is that he's not actually playing that well and the chances for him to play at a higher level are just around the corner. He'll get a chance to prove himself against Premier League opposition against West Ham in the cup and with the busy schedule over Christmas and the new year you can bet Soldado won't start every game. If he doesn't prove himself enough to start some extra games in that period then the FA Cup's going to be just warming up and the Europa League gets far more competitive once the group stage is out of the way. I think it'll be disappointing if he gets all those chances and turns around and says he wants to leave to play more games, Kane would love to have the kind of chances Defoe's getting so I hope Jermain leaves sooner rather than later if he really doesn't think he's getting enough games. I like him though and hope he realises he doesn't have it that bad, anything's got to be better than signing for West Ham again surely. Time for him to start talking a bit more positively rather than worrying about game time, it's not going to effect his chances of getting to Brazil, if it was Smalling, Milner, Cahill, Welbeck and Cleverley wouldn't be getting picked too.
To be fair he's probably your best striker, which to me suggests you need to invest heavily in that position.
£4mill seems cheap though. I'd expect him to go for the thick end of £10mill, he's well worth it to any club in a relegation battle.
Defoe should play more in the league. When he plays games he scores goals. He doesn't do anything else but then neither does Soldado so might as well go for the one that scores goals.
Defoe plays well in a system that pairs him with a striker that's very different to him. We don't use one and West Ham don't either, so I'm not sure why he's angling for a move to them. He'd be better off trying to link up with Redknapp again at QPR. With Eriksen picking up an injury for Denmark it would probably be a good idea to pick Defoe and Kane against Tromso. I think it would work and it would give us a useful option when we're struggling to break teams down.
You just have to let people have their rants about Defoe as in all honestly anyone (and no offence HIAG) who rates Bent over Defoe has clearly either just returned from a late night party, where they had objects insterted where they shouldn't have been, or is related to Bent. Defoe has always divided opinion, but just a few facts - He is our 5th all time top scorer - Our Record European Scorer - In the two seasons he played 34 league games (since his return from pompey), we got champions league football and in the other our record points tally. Of course we could discuss Darrent Bent and his career, highlights? personal glory in relegation battles, yeah we really missed out there! If Defoe is having a rant in the press or is unhappy, so be it, he is 31, nearing the end of his career and is still ambitious, and is sitting on the bench watching Soldado fail most weeks, of course he is going to be a tad unhappy BUT Defoe is a yiddo, he has always stuck around and played his part and this is what he said All that shows, is Defoe has the world cup place on his mind and winning his place in the spurs team, we have a hungry striker wanting to play for the club and impress for his Country, yeah I can really see why we should slate Defoe!
It's not the first time he's brought up not playing though. He's always been in Hodgson's squad just as every England manager has picked him to go to finals(apart from when he was the 23rd man) so he has no reason to worry. He should be gratefuly that he can get all these opportunities with us, if he got benched at a lower down team he'd be playing no football whatsoever. We all know he's not been great in his last few games and I think he'd do well to see it too. AVB doesn't pick sides based on their price tags so Soldado is dropable but the fact is Defoe hasn't shown enough lately to deserve a start.
As much as I like to disagree with you God., I feel obligated to acquiesce halfheartedly on this occasion... But only in as much as Defoe and Soldado are as bad as each other at this particular time. The difference is that one has cost this club a staggering 25 million pounds and can't score a goal in the Premiership regardless of who plays behind him week after week. The other one cost a snip in comparison, weighing-in at 15 million., has scored goals in the Prem and still has the courage/determination to have a proper go. Even at the age of 31 he still fosters the will and spirit to succeed. For my 25 million I'd like to see more of this from the Spaniard. I was recently reminded of these facts:- Feb 04 to Jan 08..... Defoe scored 43 times in the Premier league whilst at Spurs. He has scored a comparable amount of goals (47) in the last 4 years, since returning to this club. Why slate him now ?. Under the circumstances Defoe should be given more Premiership game time. Soldado should now be made to fight for his place., his continual automatic selection should be at least questioned.
I'm not really calling for Defoe to start, our attacking problems are deeper then Soldado or Defoe but strikers need a run of games to find form and Defoe last year showed he can perform when given a run of games, yet the key with Defoe is to know when to rotate and this is why he's a great squad player and at times its a tad bizarre how fans are itching to slate the guy. Also aren't you not taking into consideration Defoe is nearing the end of his career, he probably only has two years left before he becomes a journeyman player and he also sees England struggling with strikers so he's just an ambitious player, he isn't even mouthing off, he just wants a chance, and I'm sure he's great with his teammates, I've never heard many people moan about his attitude so I just see this as another way to make cheap shots at a player who has given alot to Spurs.
Never really rated him. A bit of a poor man's top 6 striker. While others have had Drogba, Henry, Van Persie, Shearer , etc , we have muddled on, a little sub standard in comparison. Maybe that's why we never win anything, excepting second best. Nothing against him personally as he is top league in the crumpet department , amazing considering the multi millionaire Defoe is of microscopic dimensions . Not that surprised really , look who Crouch ended up with.
Yet without these sub standard strikers crouch and Defoe, we wouldn't have been in the champions league and got to enjoy one of our most exciting seasons. There are alot of players we can call sub standard, but Ironically these sub standard players have helped us finish top four. In an ideal world we would have had Drogba instead of Defoe or Rvp instead of crouch but I'm finding our fans love attacking the very players and managers who have actually got us somewhere.
Modric, Bale , VDV are the players that gave us a top 4 position. If we had a higher grade striker we may have truly challenged for the title.
Who scored the goal to beat Man City and get us top four? Peter crouch. Plus we never had Vdv when we first got top four. We haven't won the title since 1961, I think our reasons are a tad deeper then a striker or players of Defoe quality.
