Liverpool FC Forum

drummerphil wrote:Be honest with you considering Crouch's height,in the air he isnt that good.

totally agree,he,s in the air!

yckatbjywtbiastkamb wrote:

Paul C wrote:Crouch is a good player, problem is that we don't use his to his full ability, at the moment he is just a target man who isn't given the chance to get into goal scoring positions but is expected to bring people inro play, so considering I think he's done well considering the role he's been asked to play

niall quinn wrote a good peice in the paper. he said he looks at crouch and see`s a mirror image of himself. because the big irishman was decent on the floor like crouchy when he was at arsenal he was doing exactly what crouchy does for us, coming short and trying to challenge for every aimless punt upfield or trying to link play in the area between the halfway line and opposition box.
he said his career changed when he went to man city and howard kendall said to quinn i want you to play like graeme sharpe, in other words instead of coming short to get involved in the build up leave that to the midfield and take up a position at the furthest point away from the developing attack i.e if the balls on the left flank take up a position on the far post on the right hand side of the field and visa versa. quinn said this suddenly started to stretch teams and he couldnt believe how jittery defences suddenly got simply because of  his prescence AWAY from the ball plus, he said when he did get the ball defenders were turning towards him as the ball cleared them and a knock back header caught them on the back foot and the obvious one - he was recieving the ball in the box so defenders were a lot more wary about tackling him than if he had the ball 30 yards out with his back to goal. kendall said to quinn " you position yourself where the centre halfs least want you to be" and even the implied threat of a big man at the far post suddenly transformed normally solid defences into error strewn shambles`s. quinn said this simple bit of positional work transformed his career and turned him into the scourge of the prem - even the likes of steve bruce and gary pallister used to have arguments who was to pick him up!
quinn said crouch is a very, very talented footballer with a excellent eye for a pass and once he starts running away from the ball instead of towards it he will become one of the biggest threats in the prem.
liverpool should ask big niall to come in a couple of times a week and work with crouchy on his positional play. he always impresses me with his eloquent speaking when he`s on the telly.

Some great points there.  Personally I thought it was obvious in the games that Crouch played as a lone striker, that him coming short all the time was not working.  Especially since a lone striker has to almost play on the last man.  I still don't think he has the mobility to be a lone striker, but if we play to his strengths as Quinn is saying here then he can be very effective.

The closer he is to goal to win his flick-ons and headers then the better he will be, but I still think he has to have a strike partner to get the best out of him, someone with pace, whether that be Cisse or Pongolle or someone else we buy in.

The fact he hasn't scored is becoming more of an issue though, but remember last year, it was only the second half of the season when he went on his scoring run, with a run in the team alongside Cisse and some better service from the midfield he can be an important player for us.

I can't understand Benitez though, he plays Crouch as a lone striker against the footballing sides like Man U and Chelsea, then he doesn't start Crouch against teams like Fulham and West Ham which are precisely the sort of games I thought we bought him for

*XABIALONSO* wrote:Zenden is now settled and looks comfortable playing for us now
crouch will start scoring soon

Lionheart wrote:Some time has now elapsed since the purchase of Zenden & Crouch. The players have had some time to settle in and get used to the LFC system, etc..

I acknowledge that my opinions are based from afar and we don't have the priviledge (you guys don't know how lucky you are) of attending games in person, but my reaction to the purchase of the above mentioned players is, 'What a load of rubbish and a waste of money'.

One wonders what the next moves in January might be. Don't get me wrong, I have all the faith in Rafa and his staff but he can't afford any further stuff ups.