Is five-goal Jermain Defoe just a flat-track bully?

By Steve Anglesey in Mirror Football Blog

Published 16:00 23/11/09

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No sooner had the final whistle blown on Jermain Defoe's magnificent five-goal salvo against Wigan Athletic on Sunday than charitable phone-in callers and message board posters were sullying the Tottenham striker's achievement by calling him a flat-track bully.

The cricketing phrase was famously used by New Zealand's John Bracewell to deride Graeme Hick's tendency of only piling on the runs when the pressure was off. Of Hick's 136 first class centuries, just six came in Tests.

It might apply to his club - who have not beaten a top six side and have scored 29 goals in just five games against weak opposition. But does it really apply to Defoe? A first glance at his international record suggests the answer is yes.

The lion's share of the Tottenham striker's 11 England goals have come against weak opposition. In fact, he has only scored two against a team currently ranked in the top 32 world nations by FIFA - and they both came in August's friendly against Holland, once the Dutch had made a raft of substitutions at half-time with them coasting at 2-0.

Defoe also scored in the September 2004 qualifying win against Poland in Chorzow, yet the Poles were then ranked only 29th in the world and team in decline then has since slipped to 56th.

Take away Defoe's September goal against Slovenia (then ranked 54th in the world, now ranked 33rd), and he has scored two against Trinidad & Tobago (81st now), one against Kazhakstan (119th now), and four against Andorra (202nd now).

A glance at the 27-year-old's club records looks equally damning. Defoe has scored 10 times in the Premier League against Big Four sides, but eight of those came in his first four seasons. Since 2005 he has scored just twice against Big Four sides while filling his boots with 41 goals against the rest. And in four seasons - 2003/04, 05/06, 06/07 and 08/09 - he has scored no goals against big four clubs at all whilescoring 36 against the rest.

So far, so bad. Yet there are mitigating factors.

At international level, Defoe may only have scored twice against the other nine best teams in the world, but that has much to do with the fact that, because of injuries and his status as third- or fourth-choice striker he has only spend a combined 216 minutes on the field against them. Looked at from that point of view, a goal every 108 minutes against the world's elite doesn't look so bad.

And as far as the Premier League goes - although his drop-off in productivity against the big four in recent seasons does look ominous - the Spurs forward doesn't compare so badly to others.

To the best of my knowledge, no-one has ever described Thierry Henry, Didier Drogba or Nicolas Anelka as flat-track bullies, yet in their most recent seasons as top Premier League goalscorers they have struggled against the big four, scoring only two goals (Henry 04/05 and 05/06) and one goal (Drogba 06/07, Anelka last season) against the rest of the big four.

Of course, those statistics must be set against the fact that, by playing on a big four side, they have only a maximum of six games a season to do their damage while Defoe has had a maximum eight. Yet even that fact is balanced against the knowledge that with West Ham, Portsmouth and Tottenham, Defoe has been playing on significantly weaker sides with far less of a chance of winning the big four battles than, say, Ruud van Nistelrooy (three goals against the 'big three' of his league-leading 25 in 2002/03) or Cristiano Ronaldo (three against the 'big three' of his Premier-best 31 two seasons ago).

Overall, 10% of Defoe's Premier League goals have come against Big Four sides. The average for golden boot winners since 2001/02 is 10.4%, so Defoe is roughly around the average of the previous top scorers.

No, Defoe isn't a world-class talent like Thierry Henry (five goals in six games against the rest of the Big Four in 2003/04) or Wayne Rooney (scorer of numerous vital international goals and dominant against Chelsea, Arsenal and derby ribvals Man City in recent seasons), who always seem to score in the biggest of games. Yes, he scores the majority of his goals against weaker sides.

But does that make him a flat-track bully? Only if almost every other striker in Premier League history is one too.