Oh god, it’s happened again. England have squared up against an inferior, if well drilled side and come away with a hash of a defeat in the Theatre of Dreams. After watching England yet again I’ve figured out our biggest difficulty from our entire multitude of niggling aches and pains.

It’s our front line. I’ve figured out who’s the culprit. It’s that lanky scissor kicking robot dancing scouser Peter Crouch.

I’m going to lay my hand flat. I hated Peter Crouch for a long long time. When Peter was brought on under Mr Sven not so long ago, he was the first player in my memory to be welcomed with a standing boo, almost like a baddie being welcomed on to a children’s pantomime.

But then he exploded. He scored so many goals that Mr Peter was more playable than Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard. He started dancing and scissor kicking. His goal against Galatasaray will always be remembered in my head as the thing which shouldn’t have happened. That thing which you just try and ignore but keeps coming back: That lanky guy is one hell of a player.

So it finally got to me. Shins as long as Michael Jackson’s plastic surgery bill he may have, but he sure can play. But something has been niggling at the back of my mind even more than his height, and today’s frustrating nothing-game against Macedonia sold it to me.

Peter Crouch is England’s funnel, in every sense of the word other than the literal one. He funnels the play into one tactic, one way of getting the ball into the net. Steve Mclaren has always insisted on crossing the ball into the box for someone to head it in. (We weren’t actually doing that against Macedonia, but you all saw that) That someone is always Peter Crouch. Steve Mclaren has bent his tactics around the Robot man so much it’s like the magic roundabout in Swindon. All wrong, out of control, and you never get where you want to be.

And that’s it. By constantly crossing the ball into Crouch, we can’t score against well-drilled teams like Macedonia, who completely suppressed us on every blade of grass in the park. There could be so many other options. Defoe is an expert at running behind defenses, Owen even more so, and Michael Carrick sees the pitch like a blimp in the sky, and could spot those in a pinch.

Another symptom of Peter Crouch syndrome. He’s too different. He can’t function properly with another forward without losing valuable options. If he were a central defender it would have been different. We’d still have a massive man in the box with skills and knowledge to lay the ball around, and flexibility up front. All we have now is a man whose thoughts take a few seconds to reach his outer limbs.

Peter will never slot with Rooney. They’re too different. We have no Defoe or Owen, who have pace and sharpness. We don’t have someone who can run at defenders, like Wright-Phillips or Lennon. But the main reason is this. Rooney holds deep. Crouch nods it on to men running past him. We will never have stability while Crouch pedantically tries to head the ball onto a runner. Rooney is not a runner.

So this is my final prayer to Mclaren. If you do come down with Peter Crouch Syndrome, please play him next to a runner. And wingers: look for other options, please. We don’t want to be pounding at the same old bricks with a 6 foot 7 hammer every game.

Please?

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 8th, 2006 at 11:00 am and is filed under International Football - England. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.