What is Peter Crouch doing?

[Mackenzie]

Look back through this thread and you will find at least THREE instances of him being referred to as "the best player in the world ever".

Just the world! UNIVERSE surely?

 

[Acker79]

Just to add:

I maintain he would score more goals against better international opponents if he played against them more, but I have previously covered the difference of England with Rooney and without him, so I thought I'd do the same to see how Crouch affects the team.


England with Crouch:
Win 64.86%
Draw 16.22%
Loss 18.92%
Goals per game: 2.05

England Without Crouch
Win 65.31%
Draw 20.41%
Loss 14.29%
Goals per game 1.98

Win rate is negligible (but ever so slightly better (0.45) without him - it's 11.24 better without rooney)
We draw more and lose less without him.

But, we score more with him. 2.05 (with) to 1.98 (without). (Rooney: 1.89 (with) to 2.15 (without))

 

[Willow]

Would have been about 4-1 to England if Crouch had been playing tonight. All it needed was a poacher to finish off some of those chances.

 

[pork pie]

Would have been about 4-1 to England if Crouch had been playing tonight. All it needed was a poacher to finish off some of those chances.

I tend to agree. Defoe is too small to play up front alone. He would have been far more effective from a more withdrawn position. There was one lovely cross that Defoe looked like a five year old trying to get up to.

Cleverly - what is the point of playing him? Useless!

 

[keaton]

All this talk about how he doesn't score against the big sides in the league. Think how many goals the small teams actually score against the league champions, or score over the course of a season. The service he recieves at playing at Stoke isn't going to be on a par with that received in an England shirt so I don't think you can say he wouldn't do well against bigger international nations based purely on that. In fact for a striker playing for a lesser team I would say 3 goals in 8 games against was it the top 4? is in fact a pretty damn good record.

Darren Bent scores against the big teams though and he plays for worse teams that Crouch mostly

 

[Biscuit]

Yet his scoring league form is not amazing.

Look at Germany's Klose. His league form isn't incredible but he does the business for the national team, so is picked as a result.

Crouch should play for England. His record is fantastic.