Liverpool FC Forum

by **Ciggy** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 2:40 pm

The Case for Peter Crouch.............

What is the verdict your honour?

by **god_bless_john_houlding** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 4:04 pm

Crouch must play, he brings the best out of Torres and Gerrard. Other than that, he's capable of chipping in with goals, unlike Kuyt or Voronin.

by **Thewaykokid** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 12:00 pm

i wouldnt knock Voronin, he does have a ponytail :blues:

by **muzodziwa** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 1:43 pm

this shows how desperate we are, and it vindicates the need for a quality creative second striker that has been advocated by saint and others. crouch obviously offers more of a goal threat than Kuyt, and maybe the only defence for kuyt is he works hard for the team and the problem is so does rooney and tevez but these two are excellent finishers as well. For these times crouch is a better option IMO

by **kazza** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 2:10 pm

Bigmick I am surprised that with your outstanding football knowledge you have not picked up the main point. Kuyt runs and defends probably three times as much as Crouch and this is important to Raffa. I do not think Raffa plays Kuyt to score goals but rather to defend from the front (which he is very good at). He may play Crouch against Sunderland but it will be Kuyt against Chelsea I am sure as "keeping it tight" will probably Raffa's main concern.

Watch Kuyt's running and closing down and you find he does a better job at it than Gerrard, something I though I would not see as he has a great engine (Gerrard). You could say that Kuyt's grafting allows Gerrard to push forward.

by **Redman in wales** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 2:51 pm

kazza wrote:Bigmick I am surprised that with your outstanding football knowledge you have not picked up the main point. Kuyt runs and defends probably three times as much as Crouch and this is important to Raffa. I do not think Raffa plays Kuyt to score goals but rather to defend from the front (which he is very good at). He may play Crouch against Sunderland but it will be Kuyt against Chelsea I am sure as "keeping it tight" will probably Raffa's main concern.

Watch Kuyt's running and closing down and you find he does a better job at it than Gerrard, something I though I would not see as he has a great engine (Gerrard). You could say that Kuyt's grafting allows Gerrard to push forward.

but defending from the front doesn’t win you football matches. it didn’t against west ham, man city, villa, etc all of which kuyt started in. whats the point in having 4 defenders and a defensive midfielder if you ask a striker to defend as well.

saying that, I do understand your point about defending from the front, but somebody needs to be able to put the ball in the net (and not just rely on torres and gerrard)

The case for peter crouch is that he scores goals and turns 1 point into 3... something kuyt cant do at the moment

And also crouch doesn’t just score goals either. He creates them and he also holds up play better than- kuyt. According to soccernet.com, crouch has 4 assists this season – kuyt has 1 – and that’s despite kuyt having more minutes on the pitch

by **god_bless_john_houlding** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:54 pm

kazza wrote:Bigmick I am surprised that with your outstanding football knowledge you have not picked up the main point. Kuyt runs and defends probably three times as much as Crouch and this is important to Raffa. I do not think Raffa plays Kuyt to score goals but rather to defend from the front (which he is very good at). He may play Crouch against Sunderland but it will be Kuyt against Chelsea I am sure as "keeping it tight" will probably Raffa's main concern.

Watch Kuyt's running and closing down and you find he does a better job at it than Gerrard, something I though I would not see as he has a great engine (Gerrard). You could say that Kuyt's grafting allows Gerrard to push forward.

It's all very well defending from the front, but that's something Ian Rush made famous. Problem was Rush hassled defenders, Kuyt runs back and tries to win the ball back off opposing forwards, so even if he wins the ball there's no one to give the ball to up the other end of the pitch. I love Kuyt's work-rate but he needs to calm it down and just hassle the opposing defenders. He'd have a greater chance of scoring if he stuck to just running round like a headless chicken against the defenders. I think if he did try and calm down his work rate, he'd score a lot more and then people would consider him one of the best around.

by **maguskwt** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 7:53 pm

Ace Ventura wrote:I am astounded that there is even one person that thinks that Kuyt should be considered ahead of Crouch.
Crouch has been bombed this season and then comes in every now and again scores a few and then gets bombed again.
That wouldnt be so bad if the person playing in his position was doing the business. Dirk certainly is not and looks so shot its untrue.
I think he (Kuyt) is a better player than what we are seeing. But at this moment and for the majority of the season he has been struggling, playing him through it (like what Rafa did with Crouch in the first season) hasnt worked, it has had the opposite effect.
If people dont like Crouch fair enough, but anyone with an ounce of sense can see the lad is a far far better bet to partner Torres and he should of been playing all season.

By the way whether it be Sunderland or not i thought his header Saturday was a cracker.

very fair post... I do agree that right now Crouch is probably a better option than Kuyt... but I'm not convinced that he's the ideal partner for Torres... IMO if Kuyt regains his form he will be a better partner for Torres...

by **maguskwt** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 7:55 pm

god_bless_john_houlding wrote:Crouch must play, he brings the best out of Torres and Gerrard. Other than that, he's capable of chipping in with goals, unlike Kuyt or Voronin.

how exactly does crouch bring the best out of Gerrard?

I can understand you arguing he's a good decoy for torres... but he brings the best out of Gerrard??? the mind boggles

by **alhamaly** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 9:47 pm

Rafa should sale Kuyt as soon as possible. He is slow, not a good passer, not a good enough in the air,can't beat defender and not a good finsher.
Crouch is a target player who can give you some things defferent in the box, Rafa must gives him a chance to partener Torries as Rush said.

by **RedBlood** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 9:58 pm

maguskwt wrote:
god_bless_john_houlding wrote:Crouch must play, he brings the best out of Torres and Gerrard. Other than that, he's capable of chipping in with goals, unlike Kuyt or Voronin.

how exactly does crouch bring the best out of Gerrard? I can understand you arguing he's a good decoy for torres... but he brings the best out of Gerrard??? the mind boggles

because he holds the ball up and brings gerrard into play when hes bombing forward

by **Penguins** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 11:10 pm

Bad Bob wrote:
bigmick wrote:but this issue above all others has IMHO made more "in Rafa we trust"ers shake their heads than any other.

Definitely true in my case. I rate the big man still and can't see why he hasn't been getting a game. He causes defenders problems, brings teammates into play and scores a few himself to boot. Kuyt and Voronin do none of those things. I support a lot of what Rafa does but this persistent blind spot is infuriating.*

(I would say that playing Carra at RB ranks right up there too but, feck me, what a nice job of beating his man and putting in a sweet cross for Crouchy today! )

I am in the same camp.
Every game Kuyt is picked ahead of Crouch I just shake my head in disbelief. And with every game that goes by I get more annoyed with Rafa.
And when that happens I start to question other decisions made by Rafa and then it just goes from there.

And I know Crouch isn't a world beater, but right now he is
way ahead of anything we have a the moment.

But for me Rafa puts way too much importance on work rate and just puts ABILTY behind in the priority list.
This is frustrating the **** out of me at the moment and is loosing my patience with Rafa at an alarming rate.

He is a striker and is the most technically inept player in the squad, bar maybe Carra. Why must Rafa persist and then make statments like we as fans don't appreciate Kuyts greatness?
It just add insult to injury :angry:

by **Toffeehater** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:45 pm

god_bless_john_houlding wrote:How could Kuyt of scored the goals, when he's never in a position to even miss them because he's on the half way line getting in the way.

i meant if he ahd those chances that crouch had

by **kazza** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:14 pm

Redman in wales wrote:
kazza wrote:Bigmick I am surprised that with your outstanding football knowledge you have not picked up the main point. Kuyt runs and defends probably three times as much as Crouch and this is important to Raffa. I do not think Raffa plays Kuyt to score goals but rather to defend from the front (which he is very good at). He may play Crouch against Sunderland but it will be Kuyt against Chelsea I am sure as "keeping it tight" will probably Raffa's main concern.

Watch Kuyt's running and closing down and you find he does a better job at it than Gerrard, something I though I would not see as he has a great engine (Gerrard). You could say that Kuyt's grafting allows Gerrard to push forward.

but defending from the front doesn’t win you football matches. it didn’t against west ham, man city, villa, etc all of which kuyt started in. whats the point in having 4 defenders and a defensive midfielder if you ask a striker to defend as well.

saying that, I do understand your point about defending from the front, but somebody needs to be able to put the ball in the net (and not just rely on torres and gerrard)

The case for peter crouch is that he scores goals and turns 1 point into 3... something kuyt cant do at the moment

And also crouch doesn’t just score goals either. He creates them and he also holds up play better than- kuyt. According to soccernet.com, crouch has 4 assists this season – kuyt has 1 – and that’s despite kuyt having more minutes on the pitch

I am not defending putting Kuyt ahead of Crouch as I think it is too defensive. I would rather watch crouch as he has better technical skills. I was just responding to the question of why Kuyt is picked ahead of Crouch.

I do feel bad for Kuyt and value the fact he always gives 100%. I just wish he would score more.

by **kazza** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 6:47 pm

kazza wrote:Bigmick I am surprised that with your outstanding football knowledge you have not picked up the main point. Kuyt runs and defends probably three times as much as Crouch and this is important to Raffa. I do not think Raffa plays Kuyt to score goals but rather to defend from the front (which he is very good at). He may play Crouch against Sunderland but it will be Kuyt against Chelsea I am sure as "keeping it tight" will probably Raffa's main concern.

Watch Kuyt's running and closing down and you find he does a better job at it than Gerrard, something I though I would not see as he has a great engine (Gerrard). You could say that Kuyt's grafting allows Gerrard to push forward.

Rafa Benitez has hailed troubled striker Dirk Kuyt for the important role he plays at Liverpool.

Kuyt has gone 12 games without a goal and was also dropped from the Holland squad for this week's international friendly against Croatia.

The striker has also described the extent to which the death of his father last June has affected him this season.

However, Benitez is ready to put his faith in Kuyt for this Sunday's clash with Chelsea after losing Fernando Torres to injury.

The Liverpool manager has been pleased with Kuyt's contributions this season, even if he has been short of goals.

Benitez said: "Everybody was saying that Torres and (Peter) Crouch did well last week (against Sunderland), but I will have to change that plan now with probably Dirk Kuyt involved. It will not be rotation now, but something I will have to do.

No problem

"I have no problems with Kuyt. He is a fantastic professional, a worker, so he does an important job for the team. If Torres or (Steven) Gerrard score goals it is because Kuyt is working so hard.

"He's OK. He would like to score more goals and I would like him to score more but I have every confidence in him.

"There maybe is a problem with confidence, but if we create better chances he will score.

"When strikers score they are happy, they score the winner and everybody is happy and they get man of the match awards, and that is because when you are talking about strikers everybody only talks about goals, not the work they do."

Kuyt thanks

Kuyt, meanwhile, has thanked Benitez for sticking with him through a difficult few months.

The Dutchman said: "The club and the manager have been great to me, Rafa said he would give me all the support I needed.

"That was hugely important. And even now the manager and the lads have

continued to help me.

"I truly believe I am at the right club to help me deal with this problem. And the fans have been great to me, they understand what I am going through.

"It is a special feeling when you are not at your best and they still support you."

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