THE first was a last-minute winner for West Ham against Ipswich in October 2001, the 150th was Saturday’s clinical finish for Sunderland against Hull. For more than a decade-and-a-half, Jermain Defoe has been worth his weight in goals.

By becoming only the eighth player in history to score 150 Premier League goals, Defoe leapfrogged Les Ferdinand to move alongside former England team-mate Michael Owen on the all-time list. His next goal will take him into seventh spot, and on current form, he has every chance of claiming the 14 more goals he requires to overhaul Robbie Fowler in sixth position.

Only Diego Costa and Sergio Aguero have scored more than his seven Premier League goals this season, a remarkable statistic given that Sunderland have spent all but two weeks of the current campaign in the bottom three.

Defoe has scored 29 goals in 66 appearances since moving to Wearside in a barely-comprehensible swap deal involving Jozy Altidore – goodness knows where the Black Cats would be if he hadn’t left Canada.

“It’s a landmark for him, and it has to be special,” said David Moyes, after Defoe’s latest success helped secure Sunderland a much-needed 3-0 win. “It’s a brilliant thing, and only special people who know how to hit the back of the net know how hard that is to do.

“The way he got himself faced up one versus one and eventually got himself a free look at the goal – most of the times when he gets that, you know where it’s going to end up.”

For the majority of his Sunderland career, Defoe has had the thankless task of ploughing a lone furrow up front. The arrival of Victor Anichebe has changed that, and while the pair have not been playing as an orthodox front two, with Anichebe tending to start out in a wide position, Defoe is clearly benefiting from having someone to share the attacking load.

“I always thought Victor had a great chance of being a powerful centre-forward, in a (Emile) Heskey sort of mode,” said Moyes, who also worked with Anichebe at Everton. “Whatever you say, there’s lots of room for those type of players. Even now, there’s a lot of them going around.

“There’s time when some of his hold-up play could have been (Didier) Drogba-like, you know, he was so powerful. So we hope he can keep that up. There’s still time for him, and maybe for some players, it comes at different times in their careers.”

The only downside to Saturday’s win was the 89th-minute dismissal of Papy Djilobodji, with Sunderland finishing with ten men for the second game in a row.

“I thought he played well,” said Moyes. “But he’s playing like a 22 or 23-year-old centre-half at times with his little bit of inexperience. We’re 3-0 up, what are you going in for a challenge for when it’s 3-0? No need.”