Like most people, I have no idea what Jermain Defoe’s contract says about his right to leave Sunderland in the event of this or that bid being made.
Like most people, I know that Slaven Bilic rates him as highly as we do and knows his movement and his goals make him an unusually gifted striker. And our old pal Big Sam would apparently love to get him down to the backwaters of south London.
And like all Sunderland supporters, I believe that if Defoe shows the slightest hint of being tempted to join either club, or anyone else, Ellis Short should throw whatever it takes – money, the freedom of Sunderland if he has the ear of someone at the council, even David Moyes’s famed £30,000 watch – to keep him.
The man is priceless. Or so it seems. But if you go to sites like this one, you find some woodentop has worked out his value at just £5.53m.
The reality is light years away from that figure. Forget the fact that Defoe is 34; he is still banging in goals, looks as fit as players 10 years younger and shows no sign of flagging.
This is how the Premier League table of top scorers looks:
1: Diego Costa (Chelsea) 14
2: Zlatan Ibrahimovich (Man U) 13
3: Alexis Sanchez (Arsenal) 12
Then come three strikers on 11 and, as we all know, Defoe is one of them, with Sergio Aguero (Man City) and Romelu Lukaku (Everton). In other words, ahead of Harry Kane, Eden Hazard, Deli Alli, Sadio Mane et al.
Try buying any of those in the transfer window.
There is not a whisper of justification for suggesting that a man who does it every other game for a struggling side that gives him scant service is worth less than those playing for the elite.
Let’s make it theoretical and say that if Defoe were for sale, the conversation should start at seven or eight times higher than the ludicrous price quoted in that transfer rumour site mentioned earlier. With a proved goalscorer in part-exchange.
Subject to what that pesky contract says, my guess would be that Big Sam, Slaven and any other predators would take a demand for £40m plus player(s) as an invitation to take a running jump.
“It’s nice to be wanted,” said our Jermain when asked about the interest from elsewhere. Let him remain our Jermain.
The opinionated Chris Sutton hasn’t helped by saying that Defoe would be crazy to stay at Sunderland if West Ham want him. Is he an (unlicensed) agent for Gold and Sullivan?
Unfortunately the majority of top flight football clubs are no longer run with the sport as their main focus. Now they are run as businesses and financial considerations will always come first. If Moyes is forced to sell JD or JP or Kone it will not be for footballing reasons.
Considering Ellis Short is a highly successful businessman, the state of the club’s finances show that in itself is no recipe for building a successful football club.
Given the amount of money the club has squandered in recent years on players who haven’t done the business, the wages they’ve been paid and the fact that some of them, now at other clubs, will still be receiving some of their income from SAFC, it would come as no surprise if we lose some big money players in this window.
It was a decent enough performance yesterday but Moyes had to use an unfit Rodwell and Donald Love just to get a team out. Both had decent games but until we get a half dozen players back from injury we are in a very vulnerable position. It may be that more than anything else that makes shipping players out an unattractive proposition.
You would be insane to sell him especially to a relegation rival . Only hope of staying up. Like Snodgrass at Hull and Sigurdsson at Swansea
It was written tongue in cheek but I do hope a) he’s happy to stay and b) no one at the club has the least intention of letting him go.