Defoe mystery solved

The former Brighton striker, who has struggled to make an impact at White Hart Lane since his £1.5m summer move, was also a target for Leeds and a First Division club.

Leeds asked about Zamora while agreeing a three-month loan deal with Newcastle for striker Michael Bridges and the Spurs forward was also connected with their failed move for Robinson.

"I probably was not as truthful as I could have been but I had to do it that way," said Spurs' acting manager. "I did not want to scupper the deal and there were lots of other things to take into consideration. Zamora was wanted by other clubs and was directly related to other deals we were trying to do. I was juggling a lot of balls in the air.

"Leeds were moving Bridges out and they asked about Zamora. He was also the subject of an enquiry by another club.

"Basically, in case the West Ham deal didn't come to fruition, I was also concerned that Bobby might be affected. We asked about Defoe but it was West Ham who said they wouldn't do business unless Zamora was included.

"It didn't suit us to give the impression that we were after Defoe and that's why I played it down."

Pleat finally got his man yesterday after frantic negotiations over the last 48 hours. Spurs' interest in Defoe began as long ago as last summer. Things then began to seriously develop on Sunday. "I've spoken to Daniel Levy on a number of matters over the past few months and he's always enquired about Jermain," said West Ham managing director Paul Aldridge today,

"Even when we were doing the Freddie Kanoute deal he asked about Jermain, which many other clubs have done but no one came forward with a really serious, concrete proposal until yesterday." Aldridge and West Ham manager Alan Pardew believed that Defoe, who had asked for a transfer less than 24 hours after West Ham were relegated, would probably stay until the end of the season when no bids had come in for him.

Aldridge today revealed, however, that the situation changed on Sunday morning when Spurs chairman Levy first made contact.

"Daniel telephoned me in the morning and we had a couple of chats but at that stage there wasn't a deal on the table which I thought was acceptable," said Aldridge.

"I had to attend a function in the morning but when I emerged there were a couple of messages and I spoke to Daniel again.

"That was when I had a chat to Alan about it and during the day it progressed to the stage that we finally had an agreement at about

1am on Monday morning.

"The initial offer made no provision for Bobby Zamora to come to us but I told Spurs there was no way we would even contemplate it without Bobby. "They didn't really want to let him go but they then offered him to us on loan, which we again rejected. At that stage there was no point talking about the fee because the structure wasn't right. That was when Spurs reluctantly agreed to a permanent deal and things progressed from there. There were still plenty of loose ends which took most of Monday to resolve but we finally got there with not much time to spare.

"We had no other bids on the table. There had been masses of speculation but we couldn't rely upon that. We had all but resigned ourselves to keeping Jermain which, from a football point of view was great, but it did leave us exposed."

Zamora himself said he knew nothing about a move until a telephone call on Sunday evening.

"It came right out of the blue," said the striker. "I got a call at about 6pm and was up all night after that trying to sort things out. The main thing is I am here, though, and couldn't be more pleased."

Pardew also confirmed today that there would have been no deal for Defoe without Zamora's inclusion.

"This deal wasn't pre-planned and I don't want any West Ham fans to think that," he said.

"I didn't know anything was on until after Sunday lunch and Bobby didn't know until the evening. I was excited that we would be getting Bobby and I insisted there would be no deal unless that happened."