How many times can I say I was wrong about Peter Crouch. Not enough apparently.
Heading into yesterday’s England clash with Croatia, I felt the Three Lions didn’t have a chance with only the lanky striker up front. As it turns out, the problem was Crouch, it was shoddy defense, a porous midfield and an inability to get the ball to their striker. (Don’t blame Carson, without him Croatia could have had six or seven goals)
Crouch proved what he could do when David Beckham came on and England finally had someone who could feed the ball to the Liverpool forward. Crouch’s first touch was near perfect and his equalizer looked like it had saved his country’s Euro 2008 hopes.
In the end, it was the goalkeeping and defense that let England down, but the one choice that soon-to-be-fired Steve McClaren made that worked was using Crouch up front.
If only he had more guys to get Crouch the ball. Nobody worked as hard with so little as Crouch did and he was at least rewarded with a brilliant ball from Becks. Crouch proved his worth while guys like Shaun Wright-Phillips and Sol Campbell looked putrid. I’m sorry for writing him off earlier in the year.
So now I am wondering – was Rafa Benitez watching and did he see the same thing in Crouch that I did? And did you?