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The next Premier League season kicks off on August 8 and Sunderland’s Jermain Defoe has already established some goals that he wants to accomplish in the approaching season and one of his targets is to score at least 20 league goals for Sunderland.

Scoring 20 goals in a single season is a feat that is not easy to do. In the 2014-15 Premier League season, the only players which managed to accomplish this were: Diego Costa, Harry Kane and Sergio Aguero. All of those players scored at least 20 goals in this past season.

Jermain Defoe has a playing career which has spanned for over 14 years and he has never managed to score 20 league goals in a single campaign but the English forward is optimistic and believes that he can accomplish it with Sunderland.

Sunderland’s Defoe said: “During the off-season I always keep myself fit,” Defoe said. “I try not to eat too much and get the rest the season is so long but after a couple of weeks I’m ready to go back, ready to train.Hopefully we’ll have a good pre-season and we can start the season really strong. People say you should always aim for 20 goals in a season and if I’m scoring goals it’s only good for the club and the team.”

Defoe is aiming to score that amount of goals and help out Sunderland in their journey of surviving in the Premier League for another season.

Supporters of Sunderland are eager for the next Premier League season to start as some of the star players of the club are overcoming their respective injuries and are expected to come back into the pitch with full force, these players are: Jermain Defoe, Wes Brown and Jack Rodwell.

Former England international Jermain Defoe has revealed his desire to lift the FA Cup.

Despite being one of the best England goal scorers in recent times, the former Tottenham forward has not been lucky enough to win many major honours in his career.

He came very close to winning the FA Cup back in 2008 when he was part of that Portsmouth team that reached the final and lifted the title. However, he was not part of the squad back then since he was cup tied after having just completed a move from Tottenham.

Since then, Defoe has not come close to winning another major honour. He says that he wants to put this record straight by leading Sunderland to cup success this campaign. The team may be struggling against the threat of relegation, but Gus Poyet’s team feel rejuvenated after the arrival of Defoe. The striker has been brought in from Toronto FC with Jose Altidore heading the other way. Sunderland are believed to be playing Defoe around £ 70,000 per week, which has led to many questioning the value of the deal considering that the striker is 32. Defoe will be making his debut for Sunderland in the cup match against Fulham this weekend.

“I was gutted when I was cup-tied, it was really hard to be honest.I was in my suit and I still went up and lifted the trophy though. That kind of thing makes you more hungry to do well and get back there.I was happy for the boys, happy for the team and I was a part of it, even though I didn’t play. The whole day was special but you want many more of those days. I look forward to this game now against Fulham and hopefully we can win and progress,” said Defoe.

Former England striker Jermain Defoe says that the approach to young players needs to change in football.

The prices for young players with a lot of potential are relatively low compared to established names. This has resulted in an extraordinary influx of money into the youth market, although it is not necessarily transferring into better opportunities for young players. Defoe says that many youngsters start playing at an early age thinking nothing about football and it becomes extremely traumatic for them to learn that they are not good enough only a few years later.

The former Tottenham and Portsmouth striker identifies the lack of chances as the main reason for many youngsters not making the cut, especially at the top clubs. One of the perfect examples of it is Nemanja Matic, who is now an integral part of the Chelsea team. Just a few years ago, the £ 1.5 million signing was not deemed good enough for the club and was allowed to leave as part of the deal that brought David Luiz from Benfica. Defoe says that the problems with young players are well documented and something needs to change in order to reduce the number of rejects.

Defoe is currently with Toronto FC and he came through the ranks at West Ham United.”The thing with kids nowadays is that they watch so much football, you can go over the park and see little kids and some of the things they can do with the ball. For young kids to have that sort of gift and drop out of the game is heartbreaking.Clubs go out and buy players from abroad and these kids drop out of the game. You look at them and think, you’re more than good enough to at least get a chance but it’s difficult. Something has to got to change,” said Defoe.

Michael Ballack believes that Mesut Ozil should not have made a move from Real Madrid to Arsenal the previous season.
According to Ballack, Ozil’s biggest problem is that he is not comfortable with criticism. As soon as he has a few off days and he gets criticized, his body language drops significantly.
Ozil appeared to have started enjoying life in England straightaway as in his first few matches for Arsenal last year, he was just amazing. He was outfoxing opposition with his pace, setting up goals and winning matches, but, this year has been an extreme contrast to that.
In a show couple of days back, when Ballack was asked what, he thinks, is wrong with Ozil at the moment, the Germany legend said, “Well, it’s hard to say from outside, but, seeing Ozil, you can almost sense that he is not happy about something. He has just become a world champion, his body language should have been quite positive, but, that’s not the case surprisingly.”
“He has always had this problem. He just doesn’t look prepared to fight out such tough periods. When you go to a new place, it always takes you time to settle down. But, it doesn’t mean you let your body language drop. And, that’s why I think he should not have left Madrid. He should have hung in there. But, he didn’t fight hard enough.”
“He is a fine winger though, make no mistake. The guy is good enough. Yes, he falters sometimes in defending, but, he will learn that. At the moment, he’s just got to lift himself.”
Ozil, with more than 60 international games and more than 300 club games, is quite an experienced player already, though he is only 25 at the moment.

QPR manager Harry Redknapp has stated that he will not be looking to bring Jermain Defoe back to the Premier league. The former Tottenham striker has been linked with a return to the Premier league with QPR, which would see him reunited with his former manager Redknapp.

Even though Redknapp used Defoe sparingly in his final few years at Tottenham, the 31-year-old is one of the favourite players of the manager. There is a possibility that Defoe could come back at least on a loan spell during the Christmas period.

Defoe recently made the move to Toronto and he has been one of their important players. However, the MLS season finishes in a few months and Defoe will be able to play for another club during the off-season.

Even though some players have been against moving to European football during the MLS off-season as it would cause burnout, there have been players like David Beckham and Landon Donovan to have done this in the past, as noticed by PlainSailing.com. QPR returned to the Premier league after just one attempt and they are in the process of strengthening the squad substantially in order to survive.

The London club has already brought in players like Rio Ferdinand, which is a demonstration of their ambition. The former Manchester United man has come to the club on a free transfer. QPR have one of the largest wage bills in the country despite having just been promoted from the Championship.

“If he came permanently, if he said ‘listen, I want to come back to England’, I would be the first in the queue but that’s not going to happen. No, not for two months. To bring Jermain here for just two months would only be a distraction I think. To bring him back for two months would be a waste of time,” said Redknapp.

There are a lot of concerns growing about the injury of Jermain Defoe, who came to Toronto FC as the designated player for this year. He is one of the top earning MLS star players, but the former Tottenham striker has played very little football. He has been suffering from a hamstring injury since joining the club. This has not only put his future at Toronto in doubt, but also of his participation with the England national team at the World Cup 2014. Even though he has scored three goals in just two appearances, his lack of involvement in the last two matches has raised a lot of questions.

Toronto FC manager Ryan Nelsen has been unable to answer most of the queries since he feels that this absence from the first team cannot be explained. Toronto have made a lot of changes to the squad and they started the season extremely well. They were towards the top of the table for most of the first few weeks, but the club suffered a heavy defeat during the weekend. The 3-0 result against Real Salt Lake has been compounded by the rumours surrounding Defoe. Manager Ryan Nelsen said that the players felt his hamstring before the match. Hence, they had to withdraw him as a precaution.

“He was feeling the hamstring before the game and it tightened up. Hopefully it’s not too bad. He was feeling tight from the start and you could just see it in his movement, he was guarding it. I think it was best to just get him off and make sure he’s all right. I’m not sure to tell you the truth. I haven’t really sat down and spoken to him, but I don’t think it’s the same [injury]. But we’ll see, we’ll monitor him and hopefully he’ll be all right soon,” said the manager.