Former England striker Jermain Defoe has admitted his regret at leaving West Ham United.

The veteran forward was a youngster at the Hammers before moving on in 2003.

He eventually left for Tottenham in February 2004 after spending several months with the Hammers in the Championship, following their relegation at the end of the 2002/2003 campaign.

"When I look back at it now, I think I was maybe naive at the time," Defoe told Sky Sports while recalling his actions at West Ham.

"It felt like I was at school knocking on the headmaster's door. If I saw someone do that now I'd be like, 'Wow, that's strange, you shouldn't do that'.

"As a young player, you should never ask to leave the football club and hand in a transfer request. I didn't even know about transfer requests then.

"I spoke to my agent at the time. He basically said to me and my family, this is something you need to do because you want to be playing in the Premier League and if you hand in a transfer request it gives you a better chance to leave the club.

"I should have turned around and asked more questions like, 'Do I really need to do this?' because if someone wanted me they'd come and get me.

"Of course it was a massive regret. It's honesty from the heart, but I just didn't know what I was doing at the time. I felt like I was on my own.

"All the stick that I got after was about me, not the agent or anyone else.

"In the paper is my face on a rat. Previous to that, everything in the back pages is of me scoring goals and it was all nice and good, but all of a sudden you're dealing with this and it's something completely different for me."