Player profile

Defoe scored a career-best 24 goals for Tottenham in 2009/10 but worryingly, his form dipped sharply towards the end of the season.

After his third hat-trick of the season against Leeds in February, he only scored twice in his last 12 matches and did not complete 90 minutes in any of those appearances, although a three-week absence with a torn hamstring in March hampered Defoe’s efforts to recapture his earlier form.

He travelled to the 2006 World Cup on stand-by for injury doubt Wayne Rooney, but was sent home when Rooney was passed fit and the death of a beloved grandmother and his half-brother, Jade, has left him determined “to make sure something good happens for my family” in South Africa.

Defoe scored seven minutes into his professional debut at West Ham and then set a post-war Football League record by scoring in 10 consecutive matches for Bournemouth on loan. He first joined Tottenham for £7m in 2004 and rejoined the club for £15m in January 2009 after a year at Portsmouth.