Jermain Defoe has spoken about his decision to retire prematurely after his second spell at Sunderland didn’t work out…
DREAM
"I spoke to someone the other day and I said if it's a series on Netflix then it'd be great! I come back and we get into the play-offs and then get promoted. But it's football and you just never know what is going to happen.”
NOT PLAYING
When you get to the back end of your career and you're in and out of the team and not really playing then I think it becomes harder. Because what happens is if you don't play on the Saturday then the Sunday you might be training. I feel like when you're not playing, you're training harder to get yourself up to speed.”
RESTRICTED
"Before I went back to Sunderland, I hadn't played anywhere for like six months so I was trying to get up to speed which was difficult anyway. You get little niggles and I felt restricted in terms of my movement. It wasn't only that but it's about maybe blocking the way for someone else coming through. There's good players coming back from injury. I didn't really want to block the way for someone else coming back."
