Jermain Defoe explains why he swapped Spurs for Portsmouth

In a recent interview with gambling.com, Jermain Defoe has explained what made him leave Tottenham Hotspur for Portsmouth in January of 2008. The former long term striker said: “Harry [Redknapp] was the reason I moved to Portsmouth. I remember being with Harry when I was 16-years-old at West Ham.

Then when I was at Tottenham under Juande Ramos, it was a frustrating time for me, as I’d scored a lot of goals up to that point, and he came in and kept rotating the team. It got to a point where I was behind Berbatov and Keane and I found myself out of the team for long periods. It was really difficult for me to deal with that, because I was so used to playing.

And even when I was coming off the bench, I was scoring goals, and all my numbers were good. I just thought to myself I’m going to have to go somewhere and play football, because I need to be in and around the England squad. And if I’m not playing that won’t happen.”

The 42-year old only stayed on the South Coast for a year, before rejoining Spurs in January 2009, but says he has no regrets about the move: “I looked at the Portsmouth squad and it was such a strong team. It was an easy decision, because Harry said: ‘Listen, just come here, play football, score goals and get yourself back in the England squad.’ The team I played in had some unbelievable players.

We had David James in goal, Sylvain Distin, Sol Campbell – a Premier League winner, Hermann Hreiðarsson, Glen Johnson, Lassana Diarra – who signed for Real Madrid, Sulley Muntari – who signed for Inter Milan and Milan Baroš, who got the Golden Boot at Euro 2004.

We also had me up front, and after that we bought Peter Crouch and Niko Kranjčar. The team had lots of international players that ended up winning the FA Cup.

It was the right decision because I went there, got confidence and scored a lot of goals. And then Harry went back to Tottenham, and I ended up going back. So It was a good year, I enjoyed it at Fratton Park. The stadium was always rocking, and we had a good team there.”

There is little doubt that Defoe is one of the best finishers English football has ever seen. A pure poacher, it would be interesting to see how he would have performed if he was playing in this era, where back-to-goal play is more emphasised than ever before, but there are still cases of pure goalscorers, like Erling Haaland.

Despite being a Portsmouth player at the time, Defoe does have the 2008 League Cup as one of his career honours. However, as he had played for Sprus earlier in the competition, he was cup tied in the FA Cup, and did not receive a winners medal despite being a Portsmouth player. Funny how it works out sometimes.