Sunderland lost Jermain Defoe to Bournemouth in 2017, but could the striker make a stunning return to the Stadium of Light?
Sunderland’s relegation from the Premier League in 2017 not only cost them their top flight status, it also forced them to bid farewell to arguably their greatest player of the last decade.
Jermain Defoe certainly proved that age was just a number during a stellar spell at the Stadium of Light. He hit the ground running immediately after returning to England from Toronto FC in 2015, scoring 34 goals in two-and-a-half seasons in a Sunderland shirt – including 15 in 37 games as the Black Cats finished bottom under David Moyes.
Few could blame Bournemouth for triggering the relegation clause in Defoe’s contract and bringing the former loan star back to the South Coast.
But the wisdom of handing a now 36-year-old a £65,000-a-week contract is now being questioned. The former England international has played just 14 minutes of Premier League football all season and Sunderland chairman Stewart Donald has admitted that he attempted to bring Defoe back over the summer.
“I asked in the summer if we could and the answer came we couldn’t,” Donald told BBC Radio Newcastle. “We might ask again but it was a pretty strong no. It was a cheeky request though!”
Defoe might have fallen down the pecking order at Bournemouth, but just imagine how much this natural-born goal-scorer would stand out in the third tier of English football.
Whether the former Tottenham and Portsmouth star would be willing to end his Premier League career to play Gillingham, Rochdale and Scunthorpe remains to be seen.
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