Like Zlatan, deadly Defoe just keeps getting better with age
IT WaS the cartoonist Bob Thaves who thought up the phrase that came to define the career of Ginger rogers. Thaves wrote the strip Frank and Ernest which at its peak was syndicated across 1,300 publications. In 1982, his characters were found staring at a poster advertising a Fred astaire film festival. ‘Sure, he was great,’ said one, ‘but don’t forget Ginger rogers did everything he did, backwards and in high heels.’
Jermain defoe is a bit like that. The list of current top goalscorers in the Premier league has a consistent thread: see if you can spot it.
at the summit is alexis Sanchez, of arsenal, with 17, then everton’s romelu lukaku with 16, diego Costa (Chelsea) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Manchester United) with 15 and Harry Kane of Tottenham with 14.
Correct: the leading goalscorers in the country are all with clubs in the top seven. Yet, tied with Kane on 14 goals is defoe, whose club, Sunderland, are bottom. defoe is doing everything the others are doing, except in football’s equivalent of backwards, in high heels.
at the age of 34, to score 14 goals in 25 league games, as defoe has done this season, is exceptional. To do so playing for the worst team in the league beggars belief. relegated clubs are invariably damned by their lack of potency.
In the last four seasons, of the 12 clubs to go down, only one — Queens Park rangers in 2014-15 — had a player who scored more goals than defoe already has in this campaign. Charlie austin’s 18 in 35 games was still not enough to keep rangers up, although defoe may prove the difference this season.
If he keeps fit and continues scoring at his current rate he will total around 22. The last Premier league team to be relegated with a player scoring over 20 league goals was Crystal Palace. andy Johnson scored 21 in 2004-05.
Yet, while england manager Gareth Southgate made the trip to watch andy Carroll at the weekend — only to see his surprisingly brilliant recent form overtaken by an entirely unsurprising groin injury, causing him to miss the match — defoe’s international career is widely considered over.
He last played for england in november 2013 as a 66th-minute substitute for James Milner in a 2-0 friendly defeat by Chile. roy Hodgson left him out of the 2014 World Cup squad, defoe signed for Toronto FC and that was that.
even when he returned and began scoring regularly for Sunderland again, Hodgson did not recall him, nor did his successor Sam allardyce despite his bond with defoe at club level.
Picking a 34-year-old striker is seen as a retrograde step and maybe Southgate would be reluctant to go back to a player who was on the pitch making his debut when the england manager played his last game for his country, against Sweden, on March 31, 2004.
as a former Under 21 manager, he might also argue that it would be wrong to go back to defoe (right) when there is much youthful talent out there. a pity that the youth, and indeed other established internationals, have forgotten how to finish.
Marcus rashford has three Premier league goals all season, the last against leicester on September 24. daniel Sturridge’s entire league scoring record can be compacted into two goals in a week-long spell from Tuesday, december 27 to Monday, January 2. Wayne rooney, now a Manchester United substitute, last scored in the league on January 21 — but it was his first since august 14.
Jamie Vardy, meanwhile, has three Premier league goals since September 10, but all came in the same match with Manchester City. Vardy’s last shot on target for leicester was at Stoke, on december 17.
Considering danny Welbeck’s long absence and Carroll’s frequent injury problems, this leaves Kane as the only england striker remotely matching defoe’s form, even if he has scored only one of his 14 goals against a team in the top seven. defoe, by contrast, has goals against liverpool, arsenal and Manchester City. In the circumstances, he is, right now, the outstanding english striker. Consistent, even from the penalty spot — accounting for five of his 14 — and continuing to defy expectations. It was said he couldn’t play without a bigger partner, but he did; that he couldn’t lead the line alone, but he did; that his style wasn’t sophisticated enough, but it was; it was even said three years ago that he had as good as retired by leaving for Toronto. each time he confounded the doubts and, like Ibrahimovic, seems to have improved with age. It may be that Southgate thinks only of those who will be available in 2018. If so, he may consider it preferable to fast-track rashford, rather than pick a player who will be 35 in russia, even if Miroslav Klose turned 36 at the 2014 World Cup, when he became the most prolific scorer in the tournament’s history. So what if, in 2018, defoe is still the best striker in the country, still fighting to keep Sunderland in the Premier league and still doing it backwards, in high heels? What if he really is our Ginger rogers? Shouldn’t we just let him dance?