West Brom will rival Crystal Palace in summer scramble for Sunderland striker Jermain Defoe
Tony Pulis confirms Baggies will look at bringing England veteran to Hawthorns after Black Cats' relegation from Prem
WEST BROM will rival Crystal Palace in the summer scramble for Jermain Defoe.
In-demand hotshot Defoe will leave Sunderland after the Black Cats were relegated to the Championship.
And both Tony Pulis and Sam Allardyce have expressed their interest in snapping up the veteran England striker, 34.
Baggies chief Pulis said: “When you say he’s a free agent, effectively he’s a free agent, but that still brings an enormous cost to whichever club takes Jermain.
“We’ve got our fingers in the pie on quite a few players and we’ll see how we go on those players. If Jermain’s one of them, we’ll be pushing on that one if we can.
“We’ve got lists of players right through the group that we have identified and we will talk about.
"The big thing here is finding out about the expense and we haven’t done that on Jermain yet.
“If we were to do it I’d be able to say we’d got an understanding of what it would need to bring him to the club but we’ve not done that yet with him.”
Palace boss Allardyce, who worked with Defoe when he was the boss at the Stadium of Light, added: “If we are safe and Jermain Defoe is available, and he wants to come to Crystal Palace, I would be interested.
“Until that time when we are safe, I can’t pursue that. When we are safe, someone else who is already safe may already have done it. Who knows?”