Former Sunderland striker Jermain Defoe has explained the exact reasoning behind him joining the club in 2015.
Sunderland are currently craving a striker in the mould of Jermain Defoe to score goals for fun.
It’s been an issue that has plagued the club all season as the four strikers brought in by Tony Mowbray last summer have failed to hit the ground running.
Nazariy Rusyn was the first to score this term, turning home Jack Clarke’s pinpoint cross in the 2-0 victory over Preston at the beginning of this month.
Michael Beale then made the controversial decision to drop the Ukraine star for their following Championship match, a 2-1 defeat against Ipswich Town on Saturday, and instead went with Jobe Bellingham and Alex Pritchard as a front two.
From a mix of not taking their chances to not being provided with ample service, Sunderland’s forward players have struggled, which is an issue that Defoe never had during his career.
The Englishman is ninth on the list of the Premier League’s all-time top scorers with an eye-watering 162 goals in 496 top-flight appearances.
As such, Sunderland’s manager at the time, Gus Poyet, knew that capturing him from Toronto in January 2015 would bring the guarantee of goals in their fight against relegation.
That was their reason for signing the goal machine, but what was Defoe’s reason for moving back to England after spending a year in Canada?
Jermain Defoe explains why he joined Sunderland
Defoe’s move to the Stadium of Light was fuelled by a desire to prove the critics wrong.
Speaking to Troy Deeney on their Football Firsts podcast, he recited times when critics would suggest “he’s done, he’s gone to the MLS, he’s chilling.”
After returning to the Premier League, he knew he had nothing to prove given what he’d achieved previously, but he still used those criticisms as motivation to demonstrate his goalscoring prowess in England’s top flight once more.
He said: “I think I needed that little bit of negativity to get me going because I was comfortable in Toronto. I signed a four year contract and that.
“I came back, and even when I came back to be fair, in my head I thought I’ve got nothing to prove because that’s why I went [to Toronto] in the first place. Nothing to prove in the Premier League but then, when you start seeing things, it’s time.”
Defoe certainly proved the doubters wrong by picking up where he left off.
Although he only scored four goals in 17 appearances in the second half of the 2014/15 season, a 15-goal haul in the following helped keep Sunderland afloat.
Despite scoring 15 goals once more in the 2016/17 campaign, he was powerless to prevent their landslide into the Championship.
Beale certainly wishes he could call upon Defoe’s goals now and despite retiring in March 2022, would probably still score more than their current strikers.