“At least we have a week ahead with only good training sessions, whereas the likes of Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea have Champions’ League football.”. When you are out there and doing it it’s all very instinctive.”As well as being an instant hit with the Spurs fans, Defoe has quickly become an England hero, his goal helping Sven Goran Eriksson’s side secure an important victory in their World Cup qualifier in Poland last week.”It’s all good experience for me to join up with the England lads and these are the games everyone wants to be involved in, World Cup qualifiers,” said Defoe, who may be dropped from the starting line-up when Wayne Rooney returns to fitness to partner Michael Owen. It’s my first full season here at Spurs and we’ve started really well and I’m getting selected for the England squad. “To be training and playing alongside the best players in the country is like a dream come true and I’m really enjoying being involved.”This is a massive campaign for me. Jermain Defoe believes he has matured as a player in the short time he has been at Tottenham Hotspur. It’s been a good start for me and I’m really enjoying my football at the moment. All I can do is look forward to the next game and score as many goals as I can.”As a forward there is nothing better than scoring goals and at the minute it is going well for me.

Defoe arrived at White Hart Lane from West Ham only a matter of months ago, but his impact has been huge and Defoe feels he is reaping the benefits of the switch.”I think I have grown as a player and it helps when you are playing with good players as well,” said Defoe, who was denied by a post and a goal-line clearance in Sunday’s goalless draw with Norwich at home.”I was here for the second half of last season and in that time all you want to do is play well, get to know everyone and get the crowd on your side. Souness argues he works best in footballing cauldrons; in Liverpool, Glasgow and Istanbul. That intensity was something he missed at Blackburn and he said the time was right for him to go; a notion shared by anyone watching Rovers’ abject display at St James’ on Saturday.”When I went to work for Rangers and Liverpool, they were in decline. I had a group of players at Rangers I had to change dramatically. When I went to Liverpool the players were past their peak and the number of testimonials I had at Anfield demonstrates that. Here, I am inheriting a group of footballers who are only going to get better; financially the club is in great nick, everything is in place.”Job on the Tyne: recent managersSir Bobby Robson 1999-04Current status: Unemployed.Ruud Gullit 1998-1999Current status: Manager of Feyenoord.Kenny Dalglish 1997-1998Current status: Linked to high-profile jobs when they arise.Kevin Keegan 1992-1997Current status: Manager of Manchester City..

that outside this goldfish bowl called football, the world is a very different place.”With a two-year contract, which will become a one-year rolling deal in 2006, Souness’s first task is to strengthen a central defence undermined by the sale of Jonathan Woodgate to Real Madrid. With no transfers possible until January, the only solution has been to offer the 35-year-old Ronny Johnsen, without a club since being released by Aston Villa, a contract until Christmas. It is not quite the “pleasant surprise” the Newcastle chairman, Freddy Shepherd, said would result from Woodgate’s sale.The expectation is enormous, not least because of the quality of player he has inherited. I don’t believe there’s a group of monsters in that dressing-room who need a big stick.

There are a group of young men – and I’ve got sons that age – who need educating… “I was young once, nobody liked a night out more than me and I used to come here for one The players have to understand that now is a different time. “He has learned something in the last couple of weeks about life. But, if you keep making the mistakes, you’re a dope if you want to play at this level.”If you analyse a young footballer’s life, he’s going to be told he’s fantastic by his family, his mates, the media and the manager comes on and says: ‘hold on, you didn’t play well on Saturday, in fact you were crap’.”Part of my job is educating these players and I’m better suited to doing that at 51 than I was at 33 when I became manager of Rangers.”At Ibrox, where he shook Rangers by the throat until they became successful, Souness confessed to being “too aggressive, too confrontational”.Like George Graham, Souness is a playboy turned disciplinarian and now he smiles at memories of his younger self. I learned so much from them and, when I became a senior pro, I like to think I passed that information down the line.”Dyer, booed when he played for England at St James’ Park and whose mixture of conspicuous consumption, troubled private life and tossed-away talent has a soap-opera quality, will receive a clean slate and sympathy.”Who, at 22, 23 and 24 doesn’t make a mistake? Who at that age does not need educating and need an arm put round them?” Souness asked. I went to Liverpool when I was 22, I was the finished article in my opinion, I knew the answers to every question and I got bashed up verbally by the senior players for the first couple of months. They had a European Cup medal and half-a-dozen championships.