'Why not?' - Tottenham coach Jermain Defoe eyeing Sunderland job with backroom staff already lined up

Former Sunderland favourite Jermain Defoe has thrown his hat into the ring to manage his former club.

The Black Cats are currently under the stewardship of interim head coach Mike Dodds until the end of the season after the sacking of Michael Beale earlier this year.

Sunderland are eyeing a summer appointment as the club assesses its options as the 2023-24 campaign fizzles out under owners Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and Juan Sartori plus sporting director Kristjaan Speakman.

Defoe, who enjoyed two stints at the Stadium of Light as a player, told the media that it would be a “dream” to manage Sunderland as the former England striker launched the Jermain Defoe Academy at East Durham College

The 41-year-old frontman took up an academy coaching role at Tottenham last August, after retiring as a player but has expressed a desire to take the first steps into management.

“If I got a phone call now and they said ‘Do you want to be Sunderland manager?’ When you’ve had these dreams [to go into managing] it’d be a dream because I understand it’s a massive club, it’s a Premier League club,” Defoe responded when asked if he could one day take the Sunderland job.

“Why not?” He added. “Even when I was a player, I always used to say I'd love to manage this club. I don't know if other players are like that if other players have a relationship with fans and a club and think they'd love to manage this club.

“I played with Paulo Di Canio, he went on to manage and managed this club, John O'Shea, Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, I spoke to Antonio Conte when he was at Tottenham last season about his journey into the game.

“I spoke with Gareth Southgate, I sat down with Gareth on one of my courses, I was lucky enough to sit down with him for two or three hours and talk to him about his journey at Middlesbrough, 35, going from being captain to all of a sudden getting a call in the summer asking him to become manager. Everyone's journey is different.

“If I got an opportunity, I wouldn't shy away from it, let's go. The most important thing is knowing who you'll take with you and I've got that.”

Defoe’s appointment at the Stadium of Light would require a close working relationship with sporting director Speakman, with the pair familiar with each other during Defoe’s brief second stint at Sunderland, which lasted just seven games before the striker called time on his career.

Defoe, though, would have no qualms about working with former Birmingham City man Speakman and already has an idea of the coaches he would bring with him and some of the players he would like to recruit should he get the job.

“I won't mention names but I know exactly who I'd bring in,” Defoe added. “When you look at the current squad of young players, I hear people talk about needing experience. My experience is working with young players, understanding what they need and it forces you to coach.

“When you're dealing with young players, if I walk into a first-team environment you can sit back and think this is great, but with young players, it forces you to coach and it's the detail you have to give them.

“The coaches who I'm working with, one of the coaches has coached in the academy for 17 years. Another one who has managed and coached me here at Sunderland, Paul Bracewell. Me and Brace are so close. He's experienced, a great player. I'm getting all these gems from experienced coaches.

“The other one is a young coach who has the same love for the game as me, he's obsessed. You have to be obsessed with the game, I say that to young players all the time. A lot of young players don't watch football now, that blows my mind. It's so important to watch football, not just being on the grass and training, but watching players in your position. Even now, I go home and watch games.”

As well as launching the Jermain Defoe Academy at East Durham College and his work in punditry and coaching, the former Sunderland striker has kept busy speaking to some of the game's biggest figures for managerial advice. However, Defoe acknowledges that bagging the sought-after Sunderland job may be difficult.

“There’s been loads of names linked, and I understand that. The crazy thing is everyone is going to want this job. So that tells you that this is such an amazing opportunity. I saw Dwight Yorke talking about it recently – someone who I looked up to.

“So everyone is going to want this job. I speak to Brace [Paul Bracewell] all the time, he’ll message me and say ‘JD, get your CV in’ because he knows how much I love football. As part of my course, I went to Burnley and I sat down with Vincent Kompany for about three hours.

“I spoke to him about his journey, and about Pep, and I watched the way that he does things, in terms of his training and his recruitment. And recruitment is important. You talk about recruitment as just players but I think it’s staff as well because if you get it wrong then you could have problems.

“I go back to thinking about someone like Eddie Howe when I played under Eddie and how he did things and his attention to detail and the people he had around him. All these different experiences will hopefully help me going forward. But if I got a phone call from Kristjaan or Kyril, get me my suit, get me my whistle and let’s go and win games. it’s as simple as that. These are my people. I know.”

Sunderland currently play in the Championship with jobs for young and inexperienced managers often at a premium, meaning Defoe may have to start further down the EFL ladder when it comes to his first foray into management.

“It depends on the opportunity,” Defoe said when asked if he would consider League One and League Two jobs. “If it's right for me then of course. Of course, it helps when you have good players. That's some of the advice I've got from a lot of managers I played under.

“I've put my CV into a few clubs and had conversations, just conversations to see where I'm at in terms of my badges. A lot of people don't remember but I had the year experience at Rangers as player-coach, so I was exposed to that level of coaching.

“These are players I played with and the season after I was coaching. Stevie wanted to give me that exposure because he knew I wanted to go into coaching. He was at Liverpool for a year in the academy and was lucky to get the opportunity at Rangers. He knew I still wanted to play but by being a player-coach it made the transition a lot smoother.”

Defoe was speaking to the media at the launch of The Jermain Defoe Academy at East Durham College. To find out more about the Academy and how to apply before the first course in September 2024, head to www.edc.ac.uk