Liverpool FC Forum

[Ben Patrick]

Oh i agree that kuyt shouldnt of played when his father died and it effected his game - the problem crouch had thou is he isnt very versatile so while kuyt could and does drop deeper or out wide and link up play crouch isnt that type of player as is more of a spearhead striker but and a big but we had torres that year so crouch was always going to play less .

Thought we signed Torres the summer after ?

He wasnt with us in the 2007 champions league final.

06/07 was the first year we got kuyt mate - that year kuyt scored more in the prem than crouch ever has done yet crouch got a fair number in the cl - ie 7 and got to the  final of the cl

07/08 - we got torres , kuyt scored 3 in the prem and had his barren spell but did well in the cl scoring 7 when we got to the semi finals and torres got his pile in the prem and crouch was basically back up to torres .

So its 06/07 that i had the problem with.
Thats the year he might have outscored Crouch but thats because he was selected more often.

06/07 crouch played 30 odd games and a lot he was a starter along side kuyt with bellamy coming on as sub more often than not .

bellamy played 27 games in the prem scoring 7 goals
kuyt played 34 games scoring 12 goals
crouch played 31 games scoring 9 goals

crouch never reached double figures in the prem for us - even in his first season when he was main striker .

His first seasons stats are massively distorted by the first 4 months and that long spell without his first goal.
Once that went in he was fine and even though you are a big Kuyt defender surely even you could admit that Crouch as a striker offers a greater goal threat than Kuyt as a striker ?

[GYBS]

Oh i agree that kuyt shouldnt of played when his father died and it effected his game - the problem crouch had thou is he isnt very versatile so while kuyt could and does drop deeper or out wide and link up play crouch isnt that type of player as is more of a spearhead striker but and a big but we had torres that year so crouch was always going to play less .

Thought we signed Torres the summer after ?

He wasnt with us in the 2007 champions league final.

06/07 was the first year we got kuyt mate - that year kuyt scored more in the prem than crouch ever has done yet crouch got a fair number in the cl - ie 7 and got to the  final of the cl

07/08 - we got torres , kuyt scored 3 in the prem and had his barren spell but did well in the cl scoring 7 when we got to the semi finals and torres got his pile in the prem and crouch was basically back up to torres .

So its 06/07 that i had the problem with.
Thats the year he might have outscored Crouch but thats because he was selected more often.

06/07 crouch played 30 odd games and a lot he was a starter along side kuyt with bellamy coming on as sub more often than not .

bellamy played 27 games in the prem scoring 7 goals
kuyt played 34 games scoring 12 goals
crouch played 31 games scoring 9 goals

crouch never reached double figures in the prem for us - even in his first season when he was main striker .

His first seasons stats are massively distorted by the first 4 months and that long spell without his first goal.
Once that went in he was fine and even though you are a big Kuyt defender surely even you could admit that Crouch as a striker offers a greater goal threat than Kuyt as a striker ?

oh will agree mate of that there is no doubt but crouch had one problem at liverpool - Torres - he was basically back up for torres and offered less all over the pitch than kuyt .

if crouch had stayed he would of been perfect back up for torres but he wanted more - he wanted more starts etc and wasnt going to get them ahead of torres.

[bigmick]

I've never bought into this idea that Crouch wanted "more" in terms of wanting to play every week. Neither do I accept that the likes of Darren Bent wouldn't come to Liverpool in order to be part of a squad. They said Owen wouldn't "accept" a seat on the bench, but he appears to be fairly happy at Man Utd judging from the expression on his chops the other day as he reeled away having just scored the winner. How many players these days play each and every match? For every Gerrard, Torres, lampard and Rooney there are many Wes Brown's and John O'Shea's, so no I don't accept it.

What I do think is that all players look to be treated with a bit of respect, look to feel wanted EVEN IF THEY AREN'T SELECTED. I don't think we got this right with Robbie Keane, and after spending/spunking 20 million quid on him it was a poor piece of man management IMHO. Even if we very quickly realised we had fecked up (or Parry had ) we should have sought to manage our asset and our investment much better than we did. Redknapp made the samew mistake with Darren Bent at Spurs, it's sometimes not what you do it's how you do it.

It was the same with Crouch. When palpably our best striker he was dropped for that World Club Championship thing, dropped for the Champions League final and repeatedly left out for Kuyt, who at the time was going through a period when he was so bad it was embarrassing. Not only that but there were thinly veiled digs via the media casting aspertions on his behaviour aa a professional, suggestions that he had got too big for his boots (as if we didn't know that already FFS ).

And then once we got Torres, once we had finally relieved Kuyt and the rest of us from the pain of him playing up front, it became fairly apparent that in actual fact Crouch was a good back up for Torres. Suddenly he was a good proessional again, suddenly we had some respect for him. A little like Alonso this season though, once a player has been sleighted in his mind he's not always ready to forget. For Crouch, in one ear he had Rafa saying "fancy a new contract" and the other he had Harry Redknapp telling the World that he was a "great player" and that he would "love to have him at the club" Inexplicably, he chose to go to Portsmouth rather than stay at Liverpool.

And now he's at Spurs, and he's kicked off his career on the bench. He's come in though and done a good job, scoring hat-tricks and stuff (he is quite a good player as I recall, no left winger though). All he will ask from here on in I should think is that he gets given a fair go, nobody can ask more than that. Same as a bloke who can't buy a goal suddenly managing to score two goals in one match. All he'd ask I should think is that he gets a chance to build on it and get something going, just a bit of respect really is usually all that's needed I reckon.

[GYBS]

So lets clear up this really bad period for Kuyt - when do you think it was mick - 06-07 season or 07 -08 season ?

Didnt crouch himself state when he left - he left to get regular first tem football so that he could keep his place in the england team ? did crouch not get offered a new contract from liverpool and rafa to stay and be part of the squad but did he not turn that down and decide to leave instead ?

Did bent not state that he left spurs as he wasnt willing to be bench warming and wanted regular first team football week in week out so that he could get his place back into the england team ?

Owen is a couple of games into the season so far - lets see what happens to that smile later on during the season when he is still not getting into the england team because he isnt playing enough games for man utd ?

Treated with respect ? dont these players have to earn respect first all ? who knows if it was true or not but it seems that with keane the case was that he himself thought he deserved a starting place week in week out ? is that right or wrong ?

Even while at liverpool was crouch a goal machine ? did he ever get into double figures in the prem ? he had a cracking season in one cl campaign getting 7 goals in one season in the cl - but then again so did kuyt the following season ?

As a professional footballer you get asked if you would A. Would be back up and part of a squad maybe playing 20 games a season for a top 4 club with the risk of loosing oyur england place or B. You would go to a top half of the table team playing every single week and the chance to get your england place - which do you think he would pick ?

[bigmick]

So lets clear up this really bad period for Kuyt - when do you think it was mick - 06-07 season or 07 -08 season ?

Didnt crouch himself state when he left - he left to get regular first tem football so that he could keep his place in the england team ? did crouch not get offered a new contract from liverpool and rafa to stay and be part of the squad but did he not turn that down and decide to leave instead ?

Did bent not state that he left spurs as he wasnt willing to be bench warming and wanted regular first team football week in week out so that he could get his place back into the england team ?

Owen is a couple of games into the season so far - lets see what happens to that smile later on during the season when he is still not getting into the england team because he isnt playing enough games for man utd ?

Treated with respect ? dont these players have to earn respect first all ? who knows if it was true or not but it seems that with keane the case was that he himself thought he deserved a starting place week in week out ? is that right or wrong ?

Even while at liverpool was crouch a goal machine ? did he ever get into double figures in the prem ? he had a cracking season in one cl campaign getting 7 goals in one season in the cl - but then again so did kuyt the following season ?

As a professional footballer you get asked if you would A. Would be back up and part of a squad maybe playing 20 games a season for a top 4 club with the risk of loosing oyur england place or B. You would go to a top half of the table team playing every single week and the chance to get your england place - which do you think he would pick ?

Mate I don't mean to be rude or anything, but you've fired about twenty questions at me there without offering an opinion of your own. Now I don't mind answering questions by any means, but much of what you have asked I have already covered.

The other problem is your debating style will very quickly render the thread pointless and me suicidal. For example people said Owen wouldn't "accept" a seat on the bench, clearly he has so far but you say "well lets wait and see till later in the season". It's pretty much impossible to argue with that really, so I'm not going to go there.

Pick one of your questions out, two if you must and we'll start with those.

[GYBS]

Ok - Which season did Kuyt have his really bad period - was it not 07-08  as in 06 -07 he was 5 top goal scorer in the prem overall with the same amount as people like berbatov and bent etc . 07/08 he had his bad period BUT we had torres by then so Torres was taking crouches spot in the team IMO. So when do you think crouch was left out of the team in place of kuyt (when he was having his bad period ) ? was it before torres arrived or when he arrived ?

You said you wont accept that people like bent wouldnt come to liverpool to be part of the squad or that crouch wouldnt stay to be part of the squad - Yet the players themselves have said many things in the press to suggest as such ? so do you not accept the players words these days ?

[Penguins]

First half of 07/08 he was atrocious.

He was played almost every damn game as a striker, never got subbed and scored 2 goals during that time, both on penalties in one game. He scored in 1 game out of the 1st 20 in the league
that season and Crouch when got the chance was twice the player in the PL but played not even half as much and was dropped as soon as he showed some form.
Kuyt papered over the cracks with some goals in the CL later on
but was played every time in the most important games and always came up short.

But for some unexplainable reason everyone else could get dropped or at least subbed but not Kuyt, oh no...

[GYBS]

First half of 07/08 he was atrocious.

He was played almost every damn game as a striker, never got subbed and scored 2 goals during that time, both on penalties in one game. He scored in 1 game out of the 1st 20 in the league
that season and Crouch when got the chance was twice the player in the PL but played not even half as much and was dropped as soon as he showed some form.
Kuyt papered over the cracks with some goals in the CL later on
but was played every time in the most important games and always came up short.

But for some unexplainable reason everyone else could get dropped or at least subbed but not Kuyt, oh no...

yep thats the time kuyt was way off form - the same time his father was dying and finally passed away - in hindsight kuyt shouldnt of played as  much but imo it was torres who was taking crouches slot that season as crouch is a spearhead striker same as torres and kuyt is more of a support striker  - it was during jan that gerrard was moved up and they moved kuyt out right during the cl that kuyts form picked up and gerrard and torres first started their partnership - whenever crouch came into the team it was in the place of torres not kuyt .

During that season Crouch did play up front with torres a number of times and they had one very good game but on the whole their partnership didnt work that well due to torres having to drop deep and crouch higher up meaning we lost a lot of torres main game .

where as imo and from what i remember the opinion of torres the partnership with kuyt worked better- while kuyt wasnt scoring he was still doing all the runs and donkey work for torres , dropping deep and while not scoring he set up a fair number of goals for torres - so much so that torres even thanked kuyt for it in a report in the newspaper.

[Ben Patrick]

First half of 07/08 he was atrocious.

He was played almost every damn game as a striker, never got subbed and scored 2 goals during that time, both on penalties in one game. He scored in 1 game out of the 1st 20 in the league
that season and Crouch when got the chance was twice the player in the PL but played not even half as much and was dropped as soon as he showed some form.
Kuyt papered over the cracks with some goals in the CL later on
but was played every time in the most important games and always came up short.

But for some unexplainable reason everyone else could get dropped or at least subbed but not Kuyt, oh no...

yep thats the time kuyt was way off form - the same time his father was dying and finally passed away - in hindsight kuyt shouldnt of played as  much but imo it was torres who was taking crouches slot that season as crouch is a spearhead striker same as torres and kuyt is more of a support striker  - it was during jan that gerrard was moved up and they moved kuyt out right during the cl that kuyts form picked up and gerrard and torres first started their partnership - whenever crouch came into the team it was in the place of torres not kuyt .

During that season Crouch did play up front with torres a number of times and they had one very good game but on the whole their partnership didnt work that well due to torres having to drop deep and crouch higher up meaning we lost a lot of torres main game .

where as imo and from what i remember the opinion of torres the partnership with kuyt worked better- while kuyt wasnt scoring he was still doing all the runs and donkey work for torres , dropping deep and while not scoring he set up a fair number of goals for torres - so much so that torres even thanked kuyt for it in a report in the newspaper.

I like your tenacity but feel you are at times either taking the p!ss or blind.

The Crouch Vs Kuyt debate if we are being honest shouldnt even be a debate.
Crouch was twice the player. Kuyt has last season eventually come good but he was awful and a liability for virtually the whole 06/07 season and his form is and was undefendable.
Rafa treated an in form Crouch in that season terribly and when he was in form dropped or rotated him.
I cant for the life of me understand how anyone would even try and argue with it ??

[bigmick]

Ace some people will argue black is blue just for the sake of it but it defies belief for me too sometimes. It's like saying that Crouch was good when he first signed, he wasn't he was fecking awful. I really rate the lad and have praised him many times but to deny that is just being silly. Similarly, trying to pretend that Kuyt was anything other than terrible during the latter part of his period as a striker is just daft. While he was playing and Crouch was sitting on his erse, there was absolutely no comparison whatsoever, nil, nada between them as strikers. they were like chalk and cheese, one provided a goal threat and one didn't. One linked the play and one didn't. One could control it and one didn't. One had awareness and one didn't etc etc.

There was a period there for Kuyt when he was absolutely awful, Dossena awful. Thankfully, his stirling work on the right seems to erased it from the meory of some fans. It's just as well and they should be thankful, I still have flashbacks about the poor fella and his debacle at the end of the 2-2 draw with Blackburn even to this day. I've never actually felt sorry for a Liverpool player as much as that in my life, but my heart went out to a bloke who seems to be to all intents and purposes a nice guy on that day. The pain was etched accross his face for all to see as he sat, stricken on the ground.

One of Rafa's strengths is his stubborness (his refusal to accept that Crouch was actually as sh!t as he looked at first being a case in point). The flip side of course is when he continues to do things over and over, long after the jury isn't out any more, they've delevered their verdicts and have gone home and are having their tea. Mass rotation regardless of whether the replacements were adequate or whether it was disrupting our pattern and damaging us is a prime example. It took us the best part of five seasons to drop that one, and the refusal to accept that Crouch was in a different stratoshere as a striker to Kuyt was another. That one arguably cost us another Champions League, and at the very least contributed to us not winning another.

[Ben Patrick]

Ace some people will argue black is blue just for the sake of it but it defies belief for me too sometimes. It's like saying that Crouch was good when he first signed, he wasn't he was fecking awful. I really rate the lad and have praised him many times but to deny that is just being silly. Similarly, trying to pretend that Kuyt was anything other than terrible during the latter part of his period as a striker is just daft. While he was playing and Crouch was sitting on his erse, there was absolutely no comparison whatsoever, nil, nada between them as strikers. they were like chalk and cheese, one provided a goal threat and one didn't. One linked the play and one didn't. One could control it and one didn't. One had awareness and one didn't etc etc.

There was a period there for Kuyt when he was absolutely awful, Dossena awful. Thankfully, his stirling work on the right seems to erased it from the meory of some fans. It's just as well and they should be thankful, I still have flashbacks about the poor fella and his debacle at the end of the 2-2 draw with Blackburn even to this day. I've never actually felt sorry for a Liverpool player as much as that in my life, but my heart went out to a bloke who seems to be to all intents and purposes a nice guy on that day. The pain was etched accross his face for all to see as he sat, stricken on the ground.

One of Rafa's strengths is his stubborness (his refusal to accept that Crouch was actually as sh!t as he looked at first being a case in point). The flip side of course is when he continues to do things over and over, long after the jury isn't out any more, they've delevered their verdicts and have gone home and are having their tea. Mass rotation regardless of whether the replacements were adequate or whether it was disrupting our pattern and damaging us is a prime example. It took us the best part of five seasons to drop that one, and the refusal to accept that Crouch was in a different stratoshere as a striker to Kuyt was another. That one arguably cost us another Champions League, and at the very least contributed to us not winning another.

Agree totally mick, it actually winds me up that Crouch doesnt get the respect he deserves.
Not only a more than decent player for us but also on the side of it a decent guy as well.

[DrPepe]

I like your tenacity but feel you are at times either taking the p!ss or blind.

The Crouch Vs Kuyt debate if we are being honest shouldnt even be a debate.
Crouch was twice the player. Kuyt has last season eventually come good but he was awful and a liability for virtually the whole 06/07 season and his form is and was undefendable.
Rafa treated an in form Crouch in that season terribly and when he was in form dropped or rotated him.
I cant for the life of me understand how anyone would even try and argue with it ??

Even as a self-confessed Dirk-ophile, I can understand the argument that Kuyt was woeful or even "embarassing" at times. But this  can equally be applied to Crouch or Keane.

as such, imo there is one aspect which can't really be debated - neither kuyt nor crouch (or Keane!) are good enough to play up front  consistently for a team challenging in the top 4 (although all are/were "decent"")

The sight of Crouch time and time again controlling a long ball backwards into our centre circle, so that defenders had time to arrange themselves nicely in 2 lines in front of him will live long in the memory... has Crouchies neat  robotic dance rose-tinted the fellas 18  game barren spell?

Did his very very bad start "distort" his record? - well yes, but he also had long (8 or 9 games) barren spells  in every other season with us.

there's also the issue of crouch's attitude , which is a pet-hate of mine, but is a bit more subjective so I won;t go into it! 

[GYBS]

First half of 07/08 he was atrocious.

He was played almost every damn game as a striker, never got subbed and scored 2 goals during that time, both on penalties in one game. He scored in 1 game out of the 1st 20 in the league
that season and Crouch when got the chance was twice the player in the PL but played not even half as much and was dropped as soon as he showed some form.
Kuyt papered over the cracks with some goals in the CL later on
but was played every time in the most important games and always came up short.

But for some unexplainable reason everyone else could get dropped or at least subbed but not Kuyt, oh no...

yep thats the time kuyt was way off form - the same time his father was dying and finally passed away - in hindsight kuyt shouldnt of played as  much but imo it was torres who was taking crouches slot that season as crouch is a spearhead striker same as torres and kuyt is more of a support striker  - it was during jan that gerrard was moved up and they moved kuyt out right during the cl that kuyts form picked up and gerrard and torres first started their partnership - whenever crouch came into the team it was in the place of torres not kuyt .

During that season Crouch did play up front with torres a number of times and they had one very good game but on the whole their partnership didnt work that well due to torres having to drop deep and crouch higher up meaning we lost a lot of torres main game .

where as imo and from what i remember the opinion of torres the partnership with kuyt worked better- while kuyt wasnt scoring he was still doing all the runs and donkey work for torres , dropping deep and while not scoring he set up a fair number of goals for torres - so much so that torres even thanked kuyt for it in a report in the newspaper.

I like your tenacity but feel you are at times either taking the p!ss or blind.

The Crouch Vs Kuyt debate if we are being honest shouldnt even be a debate.
Crouch was twice the player. Kuyt has last season eventually come good but he was awful and a liability for virtually the whole 06/07 season and his form is and was undefendable.
Rafa treated an in form Crouch in that season terribly and when he was in form dropped or rotated him.
I cant for the life of me understand how anyone would even try and argue with it ??

For someone whos form was that poor and was a liability during the 06/07 season (his first season) he did well to be in the top scorers list in the prem and our leading scorer in the prem - 14 goals i think maybe 13 -

are you sure your not thinking of his next season when he only scored 3 in the league yet hit 7 in the cl ?

[Owzat]

For someone whos form was that poor and was a liability during the 06/07 season (his first season) he did well to be in the top scorers list in the prem and our leading scorer in the prem - 14 goals i think maybe 13 -

are you sure your not thinking of his next season when he only scored 3 in the league yet hit 7 in the cl ?

12 in the league I believe

[GYBS]

was it 12 ok cheers - i know it was the same as players like berbatov and yakubu etc and just behind players like bent with ronaldo and drogba way ahead that season .