The Problem With Crouch.

The Problem With Crouch!



The problem with Crouch!

Well, I suppose the
headline's slightly misleading, because it's not the problem with him,
it's a problem he, inadvertently may I add, causes! I'm sure you all
know what's coming... the long ball!

Now, I'm not going to
follow the same line of discussion as we follow after every game Crouch
is in, because I'm as bored of hearing about it now as the next person,
so we'll get that out the way quickly here - Long balls are not the
Spurs way, they are also not conducive to winning football!

Done.
Fine, we're all agreed I assume.

My issue comes as a result of
the long ball rather than being about it specifically. The irony of the
long ball to Crouch is that it actually makes him a WORSE player and
although he's 11 foot 9, it doesn't actually play to his strengths!

Crouch
is too weak to be good in the air, yes, goal kicks and the odd ball up
to him when it's the right thing to do are fine, as he is tall and we
can make use of it but why do we feel the need (AHERM, Dawson) to do it
SOOOOO often??

Crouch has fantastic feet, not for a big man -
well, actually yes, in that he is a big man and has fantastic feet - but
for any man.

He's vision first touch and passing (short range)
are excellent and he brings people into play so well. He is a great
player (stop laughing - I mean it, stop laughing!!) but WE make him bad!


A case in point is last night, all the way through the first
half we played too slow ran out of options and lumped it to Crouch, move
broke down back on the defensive, result is that for all his hard work
he was completely ineffective.

Second half, tempo up, ball into
his feet instead, quick touch for control, look up, move the ball on
early, into space and available again for the next pass - dare I say
world class??? No probably not, but at least very good.

For
England he plays well, he has good players around him that play the ball
to his feet (at least they do these days), he in turn looks an
international class footballer. If the only time we pass to him is so he
can flick it on for someone else to do something with he's never going
to look good.

He makes Gud look good, Gud makes him look good.
both clever players with good passing vision and a good touch, when they
play together they both look international class. When Crouch is with
Defoe we play it 60 yards to his head so he can flick it to Defoe who
will then refuse to pass it back to him and go for goal himself.

Crouch's
effort forgotten, because after all, it was only a flick on, don't need
to be world class for that and Defoe scores (in no way knocking Defoe,
again, the style that we play when they play together). Not to take
anything away from the fantastic individual performances of Bentley,
Hudd and Pav impacting the game.

I just believe it was the more
effective use of the ball through Crouch that made the difference last
night rather than one player. We moved the ball better and played the
ball to Crouch's feet, the difference was clear for all to see. I've
wanted to write this article for a while but last night (the classic
game of two halves, encapsulated everything I wanted to say), I feel
Crouch is getting unjust stick because we aren't using properly, treat
him as a footballer, as you would anyone else, not a one trick flick on
pony - because as I said, this is actually the one trick he hasn't got
(well, no better than anyone else really), what he can do is kill the
ball with a touch, be it his chest or his feet. stick to that and we'll
see the real Crouch - seriously, stop laughing now, he IS a good
footballer!!

Oh, I give up!!

As foot note, a quick well
done to all the boys last night, at 26 years of age I don't think I've
seen a Spurs team with this much heart and backbone, Stoke game and now
this have proved that!

Down to 12 senior players available after
Corluka and Bassong limped off, Gud CM, Wilson right back! Lucky we've
only got Pompey (without their best player) at the weekend!

Long
Live 'Arry and COYS!!



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Writer: Dan Mac


Date:Thursday March 25 2010
Time: 4:13PM








Your Comments







used to say the same when at Villa, we'd hoof
the ball to him and yet he is so much more cultured than people give him
credit for.

The Fear





hes a handy sub just like with england,at da
moment its hard ta drop any1 as every1 is playin excellent,team for
saturday 4 me would be if fit. gomes walker daws bassong bale bentley
wilson hudd luka pav gud

glendalough yid





he has the ability, but if he can't find a way
to tell his teams mates that he is better with the ball at his feet
then it's his fault for never bloody telling anyone! crouch is a good
option from the bench for us and should be used as so.

yidinchina





Well, its been a while since i've been on
properley, but seeing as we were doing so well i thought i'd take
another peek. If i had chosen to log off earlier in the Spurs v Fulham
thread i may never have come back, but at least it looks like certain
individuals have been removed and some from the past don't seem to be on
here, so i may well frequent more often. Also some peoples opinions of
players have changed dramatically, like about Pav...you know who you
are!
As for Crouchy, he is without doubt better on the deck, and i agree with
Dan Mac, he was better in the 2nd half as the whole team was! I would
agree with glendalough though, with Defoe out i would play Gudjohnsen
and Super Pav!! COYS!!!!

Jabberyid





Dawson´s a defender and often makes the right
decision to hoof the ball up to Crouch imo. When you have a safety
firstoption towering so high, as a defender, you must make use of it.
However, I would like to see the option used a little less when the
defence are under no pressure. All in all, I agree with the article.
Crouch is a good player all round and we should be able to make a little
better use of him. Having said that, this season he has provided an
option that may well have made the difference at times. We do seem to
lose the ball in our own half a lot less often than before Harry came in
and brought Crouchy back with him. I know there are other reasons for
this too, such as JJ and Zokora no longer being our 1st choice CM
pairing, but I think this long ball discussion has been overcooked a
little bit in general. We do also pass the ball very well at times when
Crouch is on the pitch.

wayne king

You know what Baz, I've been saying this for a while now, only no one would listen.
I've been seeing all these posts up on here about how Crouch needs 3 touches to control the ball and he's too slow etc. What I see is a footballer with an intelligent positional sense who can bring virtually the entire midfield into the game as he has the ability to pass the ball into dangerous area, before finding a spot that will either give him a goalscoring opportunity, or it will pull defenders out of position & create openings for others.

Teddy did much the same, but with a better goal return.

I've said it before, Crouch gets some extremely unfair press. Not because he is a poor player but because he doesn't 'look' like your archetypal footballer.

He is an integral part of this team and I for one am glad that Harry didn't listen to the groans when we heard he was buying him.

It's about time we started taking note of the football rather than wincing every time we see the footballer.