Goodbye Jermain. Never got anywhere near fulfilling the massive potential we thought he had when we first signed him 10 years ago, but 142 goals for Tottenham is 142 goals for Tottenham. Lots of points won, lots of great memories from him. Our top European goalscorer, could still become our top Premier League goalscorer, our 5th top goalscorer of all time, highest goalscorer of any player we've had since 1976. Gotta respect it.
Alongside Dawson, Defoe is the only player left from my schooldays still at the club, and he is also the only surviving member of the pre-summer 2004 overhaul we went through which is widely considered to be the start of the time we got our act together and stopped being some pathetic mid-table club who were only there to make up the numbers. For me though, the start of the overhaul was not the signing of Arnesen and the summer's transfer activity, but the signing of Defoe. I remember picking up a newspaper on a nightbus, seeing that we were in for Defoe on the back pages and laughing at what sort of ****e that journalists would make up because he would surely only go to Arsenal or Man Utd. I was over the moon when we got him. Because after years of watching Sheringham, Ferdinand and Iversen play up front at walking pace, with Postiga and Zamora not looking up to it and with Keane still quite inconsistent, to have a fast, nippy, skillful striker who could scores goals out of nothing and cause all sorts of problems for an opposition defence gave me new found optimism for supporting Spurs. Suddenly, we had a talisman. A player who made you excited to come to White Hart Lane again.
Defoe (like Lennon) just seemed to sum up Tottenham as a club over the last 10 years. On his day, brilliant - fast, skillful, exciting to watch, great at ripping the weaker teams apart, but can go off the boil for long periods of time, choke in important matches and lack the composure to really be considered at the very top of the game. In a few years time, I probably won't remember those games in which he went missing, all those shots he blasted straight at the keeper when a calm side-footed finish into the corner would have resulted in an easy goal. My memories will be focused around brilliant, important goals - think last season's goal against City, the wonder goal against Arsenal, the bicycle kick against Man Utd, the 5 goals against Wigan, the hat-trick away to Hull to send us top of the league....and of course, all those goals in the Europa League/UEFA Cup.
Tottenham v Crystal Palace
Swansea v Tottenham
Tottenham v Emirates Marketing Project
Hull v Tottenham
Tottenham v Everton
Saudi Sportswashing Machine v Tottenham
FC Dnipro v Tottenham
Norwich v Tottenham
Tottenham v FC Dnipro
Those are the games he's left for. How fitting it will be for him to score a traditional Europa League goal, in front of the White Hart Lane crowd, the day before he leaves.
