Former West Ham United striker Jermain Defoe has revealed how Ian Wright showed him a technique that many people say cannot be taught during their days together at the club.
Defoe joined West Ham United as a teenager, just as Wright was coming to the end of his time here in east London.
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Jermain Defoe of West Ham during the Nationwide Football League Division one match between West Ham United and Sunderland at Upton Park on December 13, 2003 in London.
Both players are remembered more by the general public for what they did at rival London clubs in the form of Tottenham and Arsenal respectively, but Defoe’s meeting with Wright while at West Ham helped shape him into the striker he would become.
Wright, of course, joined the Irons from the Gunners in 1999 but lasted only 15 months before joining Nottingham Forest as his career was starting to wind down.
Defoe explains how Wright showed him a specific type of finish
Speaking on the League of 72, Defoe said: “I signed for West Ham at 16 and the first person I see is Ian Wright.
“For me – you can imagine what that does to a 16-year-old. So like, every day after training, I’d just stay behind.
“It was Wright, [Paolo] Di Canio, Frank Lampard, Freddie Kanoute – all that lot, even like [Svetoslav] Todorov.
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“I’d just join in. I’d just watch Wrighty’s finishing, watch him, watch the movement.
“He was unbelievable, to be fair. We did a session one day and the ball went wide and then I made a run in the box but the ball went like behind me.
“He said to me: ‘You’re getting the box too early.’
“He used to hold my bib, he was holding me, then he’d push me across the near post and then I’d finish.”
Defoe added: “Timing.”
So much is made about a striker needing a natural instinct to score goals, but that does not mean that there are not lessons to be learned along the way.
Wright’s advice clearly worked, as Defoe would break through into the Hammers team as a teenager.
In total, he scored 40 goals while registering four assists for the club and looked set to establish himself as something of a legend before it all ended in tears.
Sebastien Schemmel Jermaine Defoe celebration
28 Oct 2001: West Ham's Sebastien Schemmel (left) congratulates goalscorer Jermaine Defoe during the FA Barclaycard Premiership match against Ipswich Town played at Portman Road in Ipswich, England. Mandatory Credit: Phil Cole /Allsport
Indeed, Defoe handed in a transfer request at West Ham in 2003 and eventually joined Spurs in acrimonious circumstances.
Defoe has since apologised for that, but it does little to help now.
It would have been fascinating to see how his career would have developed in the claret and blue of West Ham.
Former Irons boss Harry Redknapp famously believes he’d have won the Premier League if West Ham’s Golden Generation stayed together.
Defoe formed part of that, although he emerged slightly after the likes of Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand.
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