How is it that an international striker with 16 goals in 34 games for his country and a Premiership strike rate of one goal in under every 3 games simply keeps being moved on? Now I could understand it if the player in question was a boorish, thuggish hooligan who whines about not being treated fairly and then beats up team mates in training, attacks children in hotels and puts lit cigars out in youth players eyes.
Yet Peter Crouch comes across as a genuinely nice lad, pleasant, well spoken, always gives 100% wherever he plays and has a zero reputation for assaulting members of the British public. Crouch looks set to leave Portsmouth for a second time and seemingly has a straight choice between Fulham or re-joining Harry Redknapp for a third time at Tottenham.
With a transfer price of £12 million being already accepted form Sunderland, which Crouch has turned down due to geographical location, Crouch looks set to move for the 7th time on a permanent deal. His career has seen him sold by Spurs, QPR, Pompey, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Southampton. He’s had loan spells at Norwich City, Dulwich Hamlets and IFK Hässleholm making 9 different clubs he’s turned out for in just 9 years.
Why does no-one rely on the likeable striker? His longest spell at one club was the 3 seasons at Liverpool he spent from 2005 until 2008, even finishing as top scorer one season but deemed not as good as Andrie Voronin or David Ngog. Here’s a lad that is never late for training or has his picture taken falling out of nightclubs every night of the week. Surely something else must be going amiss?
Crouch is one of those players, in football terms anyway, who stands out simply through his physical characteristics. At 6′ 7″, he’d hardly be noticed on a basketball court, but on the pitch he’s a giant. The popular misconception about Crouch is that because he’s tall, he must be good in the air. Whilst he’s no slouch, it’s certainly not the strongest part of his game but surely everyone knows that now don’t they?
He’s a good footballer, you don’t score over 100 goals in your career by luck, or hit a hat trick against Arsenal which was deemed as one of the perfect hat tricks
* and not be skilful. Crouch can play football; he’s just a lot taller than a lot of people that also play the game. As is the current state of the world we live in, anyone who’s slightly different suffers from bad press. Now I’m not saying that Crouch is the world’s best striker, but he will always try for the team he plays for.
It seems he now faces a straight choice between two of England’s best club managers for where he wants to take his career. Does he take a risk with someone he’s never worked with before in Roy Hodgson or go with the familiar manager in Harry Redknapp. I’m a massive fan of Hodgson, he’s easily the most under rated manager in the Premiership by some distance but Redknapp may have the upper hand here. Some Spurs fans think he’s garbage and shouldn’t be brought back to Tottenham. That’s the problem with being a Spurs supporter; we’ve too many fans who still think it’s 1962 or 1984.Crouch would be a great signing. No arguement.
Anyone who thinks Peter Crouch isn’t good enough for Tottenham needs to take a reality check. These are the same fans that never gave Darren Bent a chance and if he chooses Fulham over Spurs then it’s Tottenham’s loss. Personally I’d love to see him back at White Hart Lane and if he goes to Fulham then they have a player that will always give his all.
* A perfect hat trick is deemed to be one when a player scores one with his left foot, one with the right foot and with a header.
Portsmouth is only moving Crouch along because they need the money. He’d stay otherwise.
As for those Spurs supporters, maybe they just don’t like nachos.
I would say that Pompey supporters have shown Crouchaldinho a lot of love. He is the one that came out and said he was available and looking to make a move away from the South Coast. I think that he wants to be a part of the English World Cup Side, and he feels that even though he made it back into the squad as a Pompey player, he needs to be at a different club. I would say it almost certain that he joins Fulham where he would easily be first choice and he would get to play in the Europa Cup.
Your statement that was, “deemed not as good as Andrie Voronin or David Ngog” is completely and utter rubbish and makes one wonder how much research was put into this article.
Firstly, Peter Crouch was sold because in order to raise funds to help finance Liverpool’s spending in the transfer market. Have you forgotten that Liverpool bought Robbie Keane last summer?
Secondly, Liverpool does not even rate Voronin all that highly. They did not spend a lot of money to bring him to the club, he came to Liverpool on a free , and he was promptly loaned at the beginning of the second year of his contract, the same season Crouch was sold. Moreover, Liverpool was willing to sell Voronin to Hertha Berlin, a move Voronin himself wanted, but Hertha Berlin was not able to meet Liverpool’s asking price (a price that Voronin admitted was incredibly fair).
Thirdly, with respect to David N’Gog, Liverpool spent a grand total of £1.5 million to sign him. Do you honestly think that Rafa Benitez or anyone else for that matter thought a then 19 year old who scored a grand total of one senior side goal in his career would provide a better goal return in his first season than a man who was their third top scorer from the year before?
As for the question that inspired this article (Why does no-one love Peter Crouch?), it is not that he is not liked, in actuality, most of his moves would reflect the opposite.
For the most part, if you examine his career, everyone of his moves has been up the footballing ladder to a side that was better than the one he previously played for because teams playing at a higher level recognized his talent and felt he could be an asset. He went from QPR, to Portsmouth, and then to Villa. Then a few seasons later he went from Southampton to Liverpool. If a player player went from League Two, to League One, to the Coca-Cola Championship, to the Premier League, in four consecutive years all the while playing for four different sides, would one say he was disliked, or that he was just increasing in value?
The fact that the two sides fighting it out for him right now finished in the top eight last season while Portsmouth finished in the bottom half of the table just reaffirms the value higher quality sides place on him.
As for his loan spells, he was sent out on loan not because of a lack of love but, due to a lack of production. At the end of the day, football is a business, and no matter how lovable you are, that will never change.
You have to admit that if he where to retire today it would be hard to put a kit on his statue as it where… He’s already been sold 6 times in his career. Hard to believe that QPR got him for 60k from Spuds in 2000 and then sold him for 1.5 to his first tour with Pompey.
And everybody loves the man, but the player is very prone to fouling and stopping attacks. And this may be the length of his arms or just that the ref can see everything he does, but the man does have rather large holes in his game to make him a top striker.
He is what he is, a great guy to have on a club on many levels, but flawed as well.
If there’s one thing about Paul’s articles you can never accuse him of, it’s lack of research. He clearly knows his football, you clearly love Liverpool. There’s a massive difference.
So, Selling your second best striker whilst keeping two crap strikers in your mind makes perfect sense?
Secondly, how is leaving Villa for Southampton or Liverpool for Portsmouth an upmarket move?
Thirdly, Any player who has moved more than Jermaine Pennant must be wondering what he has to do to find a home.
“So, Selling your second best striker whilst keeping two crap strikers in your mind makes perfect sense?”
As I clearly stated, “Peter Crouch was sold because in order to raise funds to help finance Liverpool’s spending in the transfer market. Have you forgotten that Liverpool bought Robbie Keane last summer?” The general consensus in the footballing world last summer was that Robbie Keane was a better striker was a better striker that Peter Crouch, which was reflected by the difference between their transfer fee. Upgrading the quality of a side seems to make pretty good sense to me.
“Secondly, how is leaving Villa for Southampton or Liverpool for Portsmouth an upmarket move?”
If you take a look at what I wrote, I stated that, “For the most part, if you examine his career, everyone of his moves has been up the footballing ladder”. The phrase, “for the most part” does not mean all the time. Granted, my selection of words was poor by then using the phrase “every one” in the same sentence but, the point remains that the sentiment of that statement was that the majority of his moves, not all of them, were to better clubs. His two moves down the footballing ladder had to do with a poor run of form in one instance (only scoring six goals over three season for Aston Villa), and falling victim to a need to raise more transfer funds in order to buy a better striker in the other instance. Neither really has anything to do with being unloved but more to do with the nature of football.
“Thirdly, Any player who has moved more than Jermaine Pennant must be wondering what he has to do to find a home.”
As a rule of thumb, yes, nonetheless, rules of thumbs are not meant to be precisely accurate in every single situation which why one has to examine the actual facts in detail before arriving at any concrete conclusions.
if crouchy was happy being torres backup,ie: not starting-he’d still be at liverpool…..im not blaming him(cant fault any player for wanting to start) just saying….if he was happy to just fill in when needed,he’d be welcome back at liverpool with open arms(and probably never would have left)
whos that chick he’s with
Theres always room for a striker at Manchester City lol.
That’s his fiancee Abbey Clancy. She’s well fit.
“Well fit” is putting it delicately.
They got your Nachos at Fulham Crouch. Go there and prosper. Spurs is a death trap for your World Cup ambitions.
crouch is def underrated. yeah, he does miss some sitters, but so do “world class players” like ibrahimovic and rooney. he just looks worse missing goals because of his height
hope he goes to fulham, think he can do well under hodgson.
The thing about Crouch is, his scoring ratio is good yes, but he also misses a lot of chances. There’s an element of prejudice too – the fact he’s tall, very tall, means that to many he is simply the ‘gangly bloke who falls over a lot’. Tall players get saddled with cliches of being slow, looking like they put less effort in, bad ball control etc. Crouch is a decent enough forward, but he is not worth £12 million.
Excellent blog by the way, only found it this morning.
Thing about Crouch is that when he does something wrong… he really looks ridiculous. Another player may give the ball up and you groan to yourself but get on with it. With Crouch, he gives the ball up in a way that, to be blunt, makes you laugh out loud. I’m not saying he makes MORE mistakes than others… they’re just that much more hilarious. He just looks so awkward sometimes. I think he’s a great player but I just think his mistakes are exaggerated that much more due to his unique physique.
Hope he goes to Fulham, personally. I think he’d so really well there.
As a Spurs fan, i can’t wait to see him next season. He’s better than Bent, can hold play up, a good target for Lennon and Bentley and already has a good understanding with Defoe. If Crouch was Italian the usual boo boys would be wetting themselves. A regular in the national team set up, a game to goal ratio second to none, played in a champions league final and all for under £10m!! Great business ‘Arry. Now go and strengthen our midfield with Viera to really wind some of those idiots up. Hopefully they wont renew their tickets and us true football fans can thoroughly get behind the team.
i love you so much that i want to kill my self for you!!!
He may be a decent player but he’s hard on the eyes to watch. He’s not fluid, when he has the ball at his feet its kinda painful to watch at times. I honestly dont think he’s as good with his head as most people think he is, especially for a guy his size. He’s hard to pair with other strikers up top and he misses quite a few sitters.
I’m sure some Crouchey supporters are gonna flame on me for this but I honestly don’t think he’s as good as the stats that were listed in the article. He may pass ur stat test but I think he fails the eye test…