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Jermain Defoe: Good at Scoring Goals, But Good Enough to Start for England?

   

Spurs beat Wigan 9-1 (not a typo) this weekend with England’s own Jermain Defoe backing five of the goals. A hat-trick and two thirds of way to another hat-trick.

My favourite thing about those five is the range it demonstrates in Defoe’s finishing: From movement in the box to close range acrobatics to sniper like accuracy from a wide angle. No doubt about it, Jermain Defoe is good at scoring goals.

But good enough to start for England?

In terms of pure goalscoring, I say yes. But with the system England currently play, there’s still no place for him in the first XI. It’s Rooney behind a big man. And Defoe is not a big man. It’s that simple.

The current system is built around Wayne Rooney. It’s no coincidence that Rooney scored nine goals in 10 World Cup qualifying games. The system works because he has a big man to play off of, and – like it or not – that man is Emile Heskey.

Including Defoe means changing the system. Essentially it means changing the system to suit Defoe instead of Rooney. Assuming we can agree that Rooney is the superior and more complete player, it’s very difficult to argue that building a team around Defoe is a smart idea.

I hope no one reads this post and thinks I’m anti-Defoe. I’m really really not. I think he’s fantastic. But that doesn’t mean I want England to change the way we’ve been playing.

What I do want to see, and what I think we will see, is Defoe on the bench at the World Cup. But also Defoe coming off the bench to either win games or rescue games. There’s no shame in that. Because if you want to go far in a World Cup, then sometimes Plan B is either as important or even more important than Plan A.


  • http://www.thebackofthenet.com vernon @ football social network

    It s a strange way to go on when the forwards on the bench are far more likely to score than the ones that are picked to start. Pretty much everybody on the pitch is more likely to score than Heskey. Defoe and Crouch are both more likely to score than Rooney. So is Lampard come to that.
    Lets pick forwards that can score.

  • Martin

    And spurs is built around Defoe? How?

  • AnanOfCourse

    @Vernon
    Couldn’t have said it better myself. We seem intent on fielding team that we want to do well for us rather than the one that actually will.

  • Zac

    There’s got to be a way to fit the best possible players into the scheme, or at least fitting the best combination of players, rather than tailoring everything around one player. I’m not smart enough to know what it is, but there must be a happy medium which utilizes both Rooney and Defoe, and even if that means neither of them are utilizing 100 % of their potential it might be the case that 70-80% of Rooney and Defoe are greater than the sum of 100% of Rooney and %100 of Heskey.

  • seif

    England have a problem in the goalkeeping area and should really take a look at STEVE HARPER. He is doing fantastically well for Newcastle this season: only 10 goals conceded in 18 games played!! He looks as if he is the only English GK capable of match-winning performances (look at his performance against Sheffield United!!).Capello looked at Mancienne when he was at Wolves in the Championship and i don’t see why he shouldn’t try Harper in the friendly in march…

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