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Beattie - your clear favourite to adopt the Crouch position
Paul Wilson
Sunday March 19, 2006
Drum roll please. Quiet at the back. Four players dominated the discussion about who Sven-Goran Eriksson should take to Germany to ease worries over Peter Crouch's less-than-sparkling strike rate, and we won't be announcing them in reverse order because newspapers can't really do suspense.
Without further ado, the clear favourite among Observer readers is James Beattie (pictured), with roughly as many votes or mentions as all the other candidates put together. In second place, with a significant number of admirers, is Marlon Harewood, while tied in third place are the widely differing abilities of Dean Ashton and Teddy Sheringham, who is 40 in a fortnight.
So well done West Ham, first of all. Three talented English strikers at the same club is some going these days, and considering Nigel Reo-Coker, Matthew Etherington and Anton Ferdinand are also fancied in some quarters, while Upton Park graduates such as Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole and Jermain Defoe are already in the squad, the future of English football is clearly safe in Alan Pardew's hands.
Other names that came up, although not with any frequency, were Andy Johnson, Kevin Phillips, Theo Walcott, Jason Roberts, Kevin Davies, Luke Moore, David Bentley and Crouch himself. The tall guy does have his admirers outside Soho Square.
The whole point of a fourth or fifth striker is that he should offer something that the players ahead of him do not, and Crouch can certainly do that. Ideally you want to believe this bit-part player capable of seizing his chance with such aplomb he shakes up the whole tournament, and it is fair to say that even Liverpool fans, perhaps especially Liverpool fans, are struggling to envisage such a scenario.
'Remember Schilacci,' advises Afsar Ebrahim of Mauritius, referring to the fourth-choice striker who was such a hit for Italy in 1990. 'You never know who is going to come good in a tournament. Beattie is a big lad but he's got brains as well. He does everything Crouch can do, only better.'
Most of Beattie's admirers make a similar case, pointing out that his heading ability is vastly superior to Crouch's and the one thing the England forward line lacks is a combination of height and muscle. Beattie's form at Everton has been indifferent for more than a year, but he is now fit, scoring regularly, and looking much more like the sort of powerful yet intelligent line leader David Moyes wanted.
Beattie is peaking at the right time, and several readers express the hope that Eriksson has not made up his mind already. There is no need to fill in the last few squad names at this stage of the season. Eriksson should be more concerned to wait as long as possible so that he can select in-form players who can go to Germany full of confidence.
Ashley Slater makes the valid point that if England want either Beattie or Crouch as a Plan B, to send on late in the game and hopefully change the outcome with a goal or two, they had better look at their wingers as well. 'Apart from David Beckham, England do not have orthodox wingers capable of picking out the big lad with a cross to the far post,' he writes, although in fairness that is exactly what Joe Cole did for Crouch in the closing minutes against Uruguay at Anfield. 'Shaun Wright-Phillips is not that kind of winger, and Eriksson should have a look at the in-form Stewart Downing.' |
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發表於 2006-3-23 11:44:00
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發表於 2006-3-23 12:16:19
Crouch>Ashton>Beattie
發表於 2006-3-23 17:45:17
