Peter Crouch an article.

By

Brian Reade



Published 22:32 05/03/10





One of the most bizarre football conversations I ever had took place a decade ago in a Brussels Chinese restaurant.It
was lunch-time before one of England's utterly forgettable Euro 2000
games and Des Lynam was holding forth on why Kenny Dalglish was class."You
know why nobody could get near him? His a*se. He had a huge a*se," he
yelled, as a bemused Chinese waitress tried to put down three bowls of
Singapore vermicelli. "He used to stick it out when he was shielding
the ball and no-one could take it off him. All the greats had huge
a*ses. Look at Maradona's."Wayne Rooney wasn't dealt a small
portion in the rear department either. He's yet another world-beater
with the classic physique - chunky, bull-like, with thunderthighs and a
low centre of gravity.
Construct a photo-fit of the opposite to that and you'd see a
giraffe-like giant with famine relief legs that come up to his winger's
nipples. In other words Peter Crouch.A man permanently ridiculed
by pundits and fans simply because he doesn't possess the body of your
stereotypical footballer. A man who's been written off as a freak and
patronised more than any other player England player in living memory.And
by dismissing him as freakish, we've also dismissed his international
goalscoring record as freakish. Snipers claim he only scores against
weak opposition and predict his flukey run will dry up.But when
you reach 20 international goals in 37 games, only 17 of which you
started, it ceases to be a fluke. When you move two goals ahead of
Dixie Dean's England haul and one away from equalling Mick Channon's
and Kevin Keegan's, luck doesn't come in to it.Two more
performances like Wednesday and Crouch equals the man who earned a
knighthood simply for scoring goals for England. Geoff Hurst.So
maybe it's time we gave him the respect he deserves. Time we stopped
pedalling the myth that he's a one-dimensional striker (take a look at
the classic hat-trick he scored against Arsenal three years ago) and
realised what he brings to the team (take a look at his first goal
against Egypt and you'll see how his long legs give him the ability to
make over-hit passes look world-class).Whichever way you look at
his statistics he is unquestionably this country's second most
important striker. It's not just the number of goals he's scored but
the support he gives others. His partnership with Rooney has produced
1.64 goals every game, as opposed to Heskey's 1.02 and Defoe's 0.48.But
forget cold stats and look at Wednesday's evidence. As Fabio Capello, a
man not used to handing out individual praise, said: "With Crouch the
movement of the players was much more harmonic." In other words he
brings the best out of others.And Capello had good reason for
the praise, because by single-handedly turning a very tricky game
against Egypt, Crouch stopped a growing avalanche of negativity around
Team England which could have snowballed all the way to Johannesburg.Surely
the giraffe with the famine relief legs is a nailed on cert for Africa.
Because after Rooney, he is the Englishman who will cause most concern
to foreign coaches.And used correctly by a manager who reads the
game like a world-class conductor reads his orchestra, Crouch could be
the difference between England reaching the World Cup Final and not.Freakin' obvious really.
I'll just point out I did not write this. Just thought I would balance up the negatives a bit.

Crouchy is ok, what you get is 100 % commitment off the bloke................stop putting him down some of you lot.

hes there to score goals and hes not doing that so he derserves to get slated. no goals in 7 games

No slating from me, my only critisism is, i hate the way we play with Crouch in the team, long ball game is horrible! Now Crouch came on for England and how many times did you see us lump the ball upfield and crouch still changed the game. For such a giant man he aint that great in the air, he dont head the ball, it just bounces off him.

did you see the game today. everytime crouch had the ball he needed 3 touches to get the ball under controll. and hes headin is a joke. the guy is clumsey. and its now no goals in 8 starts. wish we kept darren bent.
and before you mention pav i agree he didnt have a great game but hes played non stop latley unlike crouch who had 30mins on wednsday

no crouch always needs 3 touches to get the ball under controll. hes so bad at heading aswell. look at how rooney inproved hes heading. maybe crouch should practice heading more

well in 8 games a striker needs to score at least once. pav is allowed an off day after scoring 5 in less then 3 games. yet crouch is scoring blanks still. and makes zomora look world class

[quote="Loughtonlegend"]did you see the game today.

No I didn't mate, they don't show the F.A. Cup games over here.

everytime crouch had the ball he needed 3 touches to get the ball under controll.

You're sounding like a broken record now Lought. Every time his name is mentioned you trot that one out.
I don't know about this game, as I haven't seen it, but I can say that you are exaggerating if you maintain that he does this all the time.

and hes headin is a joke.

And yet he scores so many with it.

the guy is clumsey. and its now no goals in 8 starts. wish we kept darren bent.

He certainly has his clumsy moments, I'll grant you that. He also has some very skillful ones too.

You may be right about Bent although I'm not sure his style of play suits ours.

and before you mention pav i agree he didnt have a great game but hes played non stop latley unlike crouch who had 30mins on wednsday

You don't need to get defensive mate. Contrary to what you may believe I actually like Pav and want to see him do well. I also like Crouch and want to see him do well.
I don't particularly like Bentley but I want to see him do well.

If the guy's in a Spurs shirt I want to see him do well regardless of my personal feelings towards him.

WRT Crouch though, I really do now believe that a spell on the bench will do him good. Even better, rest him for a bit and give Eidur the bench role behind Pav and Defoe. There's nothing wrong with Crouch's attitude and letting him find his scoring touch with the reserves may well have him aiding in our push for third.

[quote="ionman34"]

Loughtonlegend wrote:did you see the game today.

No I didn't mate, they don't show the F.A. Cup games over here.

everytime crouch had the ball he needed 3 touches to get the ball under controll.

You're sounding like a broken record now Lought. Every time his name is mentioned you trot that one out.
I don't know about this game, as I haven't seen it, but I can say that you are exaggerating if you maintain that he does this all the time.

and hes headin is a joke.

And yet he scores so many with it.

the guy is clumsey. and its now no goals in 8 starts. wish we kept darren bent.

He certainly has his clumsy moments, I'll grant you that. He also has some very skillful ones too.

You may be right about Bent although I'm not sure his style of play suits ours.

and before you mention pav i agree he didnt have a great game but hes played non stop latley unlike crouch who had 30mins on wednsday

You don't need to get defensive mate. Contrary to what you may believe I actually like Pav and want to see him do well. I also like Crouch and want to see him do well.
I don't particularly like Bentley but I want to see him do well.

If the guy's in a Spurs shirt I want to see him do well regardless of my personal feelings towards him.

WRT Crouch though, I really do now believe that a spell on the bench will do him good. Even better, rest him for a bit and give Eidur the bench role behind Pav and Defoe. There's nothing wrong with Crouch's attitude and letting him find his scoring touch with the reserves may well have him aiding in our push for third.

Well i did watch the game ion ! the service to the front pair was cut out most of the time by fulhams defenders, i didnt see pav or crouch have one clear cut effort on goal, or defoe for that final 10 mins, for anyone to have a go at crouch or pav for not scoring against fulham needs their heads testing.
Hodgson has them well drilled, 2 defenders were on bale at times, what could have helped was attacks down both flanks in the form of lennon on the right and bale on the left, alternating play and pulling their defenders out of position, but we are missing lennon big time, i have said before that its a shame lennon is out because most of our attacks used to come from him down the right, now we have bale back in the team we have the option of switching play, its just the way the cookie crumbles i suppose.

It was a midfield battle of a game, neither keeper had that much to do, with maybe gomes pulling off a couple of exceptional saves, it was nt a day for forwards, and zomora looked pretty average to me, or perhaps we didnt give him a sniff should be the correct explanation........

Its a shame Danny Murphy didnt play, whilst a clever player he is so slow and would not have been able to track back the way Greening did. Why do refs give so many fouls to the forward when they back in? To go to Fulham and basically dominate the game shows how far we have come, some good teams have come unstcuk there, Manu being one of them.

yea good asssememnt lew. theres guys on the other spurs forum sayin why did we let zamora go lol we let him go as hes usless. he holds the ball up well but thats it.