Stevie is getting help from friend and not a Defoe

MONEY or the chance of medals? The same old or a fresh challenge?

And the chance to try to help out a friend and former team-mate at a crucial point in his first managerial job.

Those were the questions Jermain Defoe had to weigh up before the veteran answered Steven Gerrard’s call to make the move north of the border for a career swansong.

Defoe has played for six different English Premier League clubs and is the seventhhighest scorer in the league’s history with 162 goals.

But the 36-year-old found himself out of favour at Bournemouth having made just four sub appearances in the league while his only starts came in the Carabao Cup.

As soon as it emerged the frontman was told he could leave the Cherries this month just hours before Wednesday’s clash with Watford, the bookies made Defoe odds on for a move to the Light Blues.

They rarely get it wrong and were spot on as he penned an 18-month loan deal and will now join his new team-mates at their winter training camp in Tenerife.

Crystal Palace and Sheffield United were two of the other clubs linked with Defoe but he has spent the last 20 years in England and another relegation battle (he went down with last club Sunderland) or a promotion push with Blades wouldn’t have been anything new.

Had his motivation been purely financial then both of those clubs could have come up with a package to top anything Rangers were likely to offer.

But Defoe has earned an obscene amount of money throughout his career and was on £65,000 a week for warming the bench at Bournemouth.

There is the small matter of the £4.5million he was due for the remaining six months of his contract which came into play when negotiating his exit.

But at what point in a player’s career have you made enough for money not to be the motivator? And maybe you fancy something different.

In the past players such as Roy and Robbie Keane fulfilled boyhood dreams by turning out for Celtic towards the end of their careers.

And for Defoe it’s about helping out Gerrard. When linked with a move to Ibrox after Gerrard’s appointment in the summer, Defoe spoke

Defoe ticks many boxes on the park with his goals and off it with experience

so highly of his ex-captain.

Having hauled his Gers side level on points with Celtic in the Premiership going into the winter break, Gerrard needed a game-changing signing this month.

Defoe ticks so many boxes both on the park in terms of his goals and off it with his experience.

Rangers were in a better position to negotiate a deal after their Europa League exploits but this is a move where Defoe has put his friendship over finances.

It’s about a fresh challenge, a realistic chance to win the first major silverware of his career and become a fans’ hero rather than finish off his days the same as he started at the same grounds in England.