Defoe has joined Rangers on 18-month loan from Bournemouth
Sunday 6 January 2019 19:53, UK
How will Jermain Defoe fare in Scotland? Will he thrive like Rod Wallace? Or flop like Franny Jeffers? We look at previous strikers that have crossed the border after Defoe's loan move from Bournemouth to Rangers was confirmed.
The goals don't lie.
Never has a player with more Premier League goals swapped England for Scotland. Defoe - sandwiched between Robbie Fowler and Sergio Aguero in the all-time scoring charts - has netted 162 Premier League goals playing for West Ham, Tottenham, Portsmouth, Sunderland and Bournemouth.
He will add to the competition for places up front at Rangers, who are in position to contend for the Scottish Premiership title. His experience and relationship with his former England international team-mate Steven Gerrard could be the difference between a title triumph or a near miss.
Defoe is not the first English striker to cross the border, though.
We assess eight others that have made the switch with differing results...
Celtic broke Scotland's transfer record when signing Sutton from Chelsea for £6m in July 2000.
It proved to be money well spent as Celtic ended Rangers' dominance of Scottish football.
Sutton became a cult hero as part of a talented strike force that included Henrik Larsson, winning four Scottish titles, three Scottish Cups and one League Cup while also playing an integral part in Celtic's run to 2003 UEFA Cup final where they lost 3-2 to Jose Mourinho's Porto.
He left to join Birmingham in January 2006.
His signing on a free transfer from Leeds United in the summer of 1998 flew under the radar with Rangers also spending big on the likes of Arthur Numan, Gabriel Amato, Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Andrei Kanchelskis, but Wallace's contribution was to be huge, with 27 goals in his first season at the club.
He also scored the goal in the 1-0 Scottish Cup final win over Celtic, which sealed the treble that year.
He went on to hit 20 goals in his second season at the club, including a vital late winner at Celtic Park which helped Rangers win the league title again.
After playing non-league football for Grays just six years prior to signing for Celtic in 2010, the rise of Hooper was pretty remarkable. Hooper completed his £2.4m move to Glasgow in 2010 from Scunthorpe and scored on his debut against Lyon in pre-season, which set the tone for a fruitful spell north of the border. He scored 22 goals in 36 appearances in his first season before winning two top-flight titles in 2012 and 2013 as well as the Scottish Cup in 2011 and 2013.
Hooper left for Norwich City in 2013 and now plays for Sheffield Wednesday.
The England international's arrival was met with trepidation when he joined Rangers in 1990 from Monaco, but the locals needed not worry. He established an incredible partnership with Ally McCoist and scored 115 goals in 222 games at the club. Rangers won the league championship in all five seasons during that spell - a feat that won him a place in the Rangers hall of fame.
He left Rangers in 1995 to join QPR and now works in an ambassadorial role for Rangers.
Even the most knowledgeable of football fans will be forgiven for forgetting Jeffers' 14 appearances and zero goals during his time with Rangers in 2005. After a failed move to Arsenal, the former Everton hotshot tried to resurrect his career at Charlton but was loaned out to Rangers in August 2005.
"This is a good chance for me to reignite my career," the 24-year-old said at the time. "The last two years have been stagnant for me."
Unfortunately for the striker, the Scottish air did not reignite his scoring spark. He made eight top-flight appearances for Rangers and also started in a Champions League win over Porto and came on as a substitute in a 1-0 defeat to Inter Milan.
After returning to Charlton in December 2005, the club released him at the end of the season.
Jeffers now works as an academy coach at his former club Everton.
After his release from Leicester, Gordon Strachan moved quickly to snap up the big striker on a short-team deal in January 2006 until the end of the season. At 36-years-old, he was brought in as a back-up for John Hartson but rarely hit the heights of the Welshman's form. He only scored one league goal in his 11 appearances (including eight from the bench) but that did ensure he collected a winners' medal when Celtic won the league.
He's probably best remembered for scoring a tap-in off the bench as Celtic beat Dunfermline to win the Scottish League Cup 3-0. He left at the end of that season.
Following an altercation with Stoke manager Tony Pulis, Rangers seized upon the England striker's availability in August 2010. Rangers boss Walter Smith decided to spend much of that season's budget to lure Beattie to Scotland but there was huge expectation which came from him being Rangers' first signing in two years after well-publicised financial worries.
Beattie failed to settle in Scotland as he struggled with injuries and the burden of responsibility. He made seven top-flight appearances and failed to score any goals. He was loaned to Blackpool in January 2011 and his Rangers contract was terminated later that year after falling out of favour with new boss Ally McCoist.
Beattie is currently a coach at Birmingham.
Very much in the twilight of his career when Celtic boss John Barnes picked him up from West Ham in 1999, Wright struggled crossing the border. He made 10 appearances after joining in October and scored in a 5-1 win over Kilmarnock on his debut - but things went downhill from there.
He scored just three league goals in total and left in February 2000 to join Burnley.
Wright's spell in Glasgow was summed up by Celtic's embarrassing home defeat to First Division side Inverness Caledonian Thistle in a result that brought about the famous "Super Caley Go Ballistic Celtic Are Atrocious" headline in The Sun. Barnes was sacked as manager two days later.
