HIS FEET STICK OUT THE BED...

I remember when I first heard the news Crouchy was on his way to Anfield.
I was massively against it.
As far as I was concerned I couldn't see how this gangly, if fairly prolific giant, would make the grade playing against the best defenders and meanest back fours in the Champions League.
At a time when we wanted to be attracting the best centre forwards in Europe, it seemed like a sideways step.
It seems those fears, expressed by many a Red, have been realised.
Not that we didn't take Crouchy to our hearts.
He got off to a pretty dire start and couldn't hit a barn door from five yards. But when he bagged his first against Wigan at Anfield it started a run where he couldn't stop scoring.
There were a fair number of high points in his three year Anfield career. Remember those flying scissor kicks against Galatasary and Bolton?
And the goal that knocked Man Utd out the FA Cup on our way to glory in Cardiff in 2006 was pure gold dust.

But his career was always punctuated by feelings that he perhaps wasn't genuine world class. And it was a view shared by Rafa Benitez.
It was a poor show from the Spaniard in the last year of Crouchy's Liverpool career. He languished for games on the bench, often getting no more than a 15 minute run out to try and rescue a struggling side.
What must have made it harder to digest for him was that nobody else, bar Torres, had a justifiable reason to take his place.
For all the big love in surrounding Kuyt, and his fantastic attitude and work rate, he should not have been playing instead of Crouch.
At least the big man carried some sort of threat and knew where the goal was. His goal return, 22 goals in 85 appearances was pretty decent for someone who was often not in the starting line up.
It was a frustrating business watching him. One game you wrote him off, the next he was scoring a sublime hat-trick against Arsenal, making a mug of an accomplished operator like Toure.
Remember that one? Left foot, right foot, header. Brilliant centre forward play.
Great, we thought. This guy's going to score goals for us for years. But then it was back to an anonymous and ineffectual display.

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I'm quite pleased he's going as I just don't think he's got enough to take us to the next level. Worryingly, his presence did tend to turn us into something of a long ball team.
It's like the Duncan Ferguson effect. Stick a giant up top and the temptation to float in a ball to his ear lobes is strong.
Sometimes it paid dividends, particularly when we had to go for the jugular and throw the kitchen sink at the opposition in the last half hour.
There's no doubt that chucking Crouchy on for the climatic moments versus Inter at Anfield upset the Italians and paved the way for first Kuyt's, then Gerrard's strikes.
But ultimately, the beanpole lacked the one thing that every top striker needs - pace.
I thought he was always a good banker at Anfield, when defences tend to sit back, meaning a pacy striker never has any space to run in behind.
For me, that's why Bellamy never did nowt at home.
With the back four often retreating onto their 12 yard line, the high ball became almost an essential tactic.
Away from home, however, Crouchy's flaws were highlighted.
Being on the back foot for longer periods away from Anfield, strikers with pace usually rub their hands at the wide open spaces in front of them.
Crouch was slower than a snail, so any through ball that gave him a couple of yards on the centre half invariably meant he could be easily caught on the 15 yard dash to goal.
That lack of pace was the nail in his coffin.

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One thing that did surprise us all when we saw him for the first few times, was that exemplary control and touch.
There was a fair bit of finesse amidst all those limbs.
Bizarrely though, for such a tall man, he was pretty crap in the air. Where were the neck muscles Crouchy? There was just no power in those headers and he fluffed a fair few sitters in the air.
One thing I must commend him for is his attitude. At a time when lesser men would have sounded off at being consistently ignored by his manager during troubled times, Crouchy always kept stum.
He must have been fuming to see people like Vornonin and Kuyt and even the ineffectual Babel given the nod over him.
Yet he took it like a professional and never went crowing off to the press. For that we should give him great credit.

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I'm glad he's got the move he wants and I hope he scores lots of goals for Pompey. £11m seems a fair valuation for him, so everyone's happy.
He deserved to wear the red shirt, but just wan't quite good enough. Still, there's still plenty remaining at the club who fall into that latter category.
Now, the only question that remains is whether Abi will follow him down to the south coast and keep the unlikliest romance in modern football alive?
Thanks for your efforts Peter.

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