A few eyebrows were raised when Rangers offered Jermain Defoe a new playing contract last summer, not necessarily because of his qualities as a player but because the number of minutes he was playing simply didn’t justify it.
At the time I felt like there was a touch of the old pals act about the decision so that the diminutive striker could get to play in front of a packed Ibrox one last time and as a league champion.
Going into this season with Steven Gerrard as manager though, Defoe began his transition into the world of coaching but this meant that his ability to prepare for on the pitch duties was restricted and, speaking to Rio Ferdinand, the veteran hitman explained why he struggled:
“Because I was doing both I wasn’t playing much and I think you switch off a bit mentally because I went through a period where I didn’t play for ages.
“Then a new manager came in, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, and I sat down with him and talked, I knew he’d been at Barcelona, we talked about the philosophy and he was unbelievable.”
Defoe goes more in depth about how difficult it was to balance finishing training with his own recovery and taking sessions with the strikers at the club, something he feels affected his ability to be available for match squads.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst
Back him.
Sack him.
Even at the end of last season there were still signs that his finishing abilities were as sharp as ever with goals against Aberdeen and Celtic, but, as with every player, Father Time has caught up with him – over 300 career goals, capped 57 times by his country and widely respected as one of the best to ever do it in the Premier League isn’t a bad way to bow out and he should be proud of a long and successful career.