Elevenses - Is Peter Crouch the best sixth-choice international striker in world football?

Published: 12 Oct 2010 - 10:09:12

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Who said England had no strength in depth? Lining up at Wembley tonight will be a 'sixth-choice' striker who has scored 21 times in 40 appearances for his country.

It's a goals-to-game ratio makes Peter Crouch more likely to find the net in international colours than Sir Bobby Charlton, Alan Shearer and Michael Owen in their prime.

The big question Elevenses is pondering today therefore, is where might one find the five world-class strikers who are keeping Crouchy at the back of the England line?

Wayne Rooney we can just about accept. He might have played like a park player in South Africa, but the boy's got chops - and he's not all about scoring goals anyway.

All of which leaves, presumably, Darren Bent, Jermain Defoe, Bobby Zamora and Emile Heskey.

Bent has one international goal, Zamora one international cap. Heskey has seven goal from 62 caps. So surely it's just a shoot-out between Crouchy and Defoe, who has 15 goals from 45 starts, for who partners Wazza up top?

But if that was the case why did Fabio Capello embarrass the nation by pleading with Heskey to come out of international retirement? The answer, he trusts Crouch about as far as he can throw him - and he can't throw him very far (Elevenses is picturing a javelin launch and reconsidering that one now).

Elevenses can't help but feel Crouch is getting the rough end of what must be a very long stick. The boy puts on a shirt and he finds the onion bag - what more can he do? The last seven times he's started for England, guess what happened? HE BULGED!

Apparently he's not fast enough, Mr Capello said yesterday. But Elevenses is beginning to wonder if Capello simply doesn't like the cut of his jib.

Come on Crouchy, bag a hat-trick tonight lad and then see what happens.