In what could well be the best bit of news Spurs fans hear all summer, The Sun, in it's infinite wisdom, are today reporting that Pompey have signed Liverpool's Peter Crouch for £10m. The word is that the lanky target man will pen a 4 year deal - as soon as they can find a table tall enough for him to lean on.Taking £20m in cold hard cash for Robert Keane is one thing, but a deal for half (or less) that amount with Crouchie as a makeweight would have had me crying into my beer wondering why Tottenham had undone all their good closed season work in one disaster-deal.
Now, if I am being 100% fair I do concede that The Beanpole does get a bit of a tough rap when it comes to his reputation. He's not a bad player, well he's better than me anyway. Fans will point to his record of 14 goals in 28 international appearances as proof that he is world class (even though they conveniently forget that this includes 4 against Caribbean opposition and strikes against other footballing powerhouses such as Andorra, Macedonia, Hungary and Estonia).
Although mostly a bench warmer for the Scousers, he has popped up with the occasional goal, and the cliched moniker of "quick feet for a big man" seems to have been invented for him. He does have an eye for a pass sometimes, and is decent in the air (obviously) but I think that's where the praise ends - unless you include his robot dancing, which in this writers opinion could have been one of the greatest signature goal celebrations in history if he had persevered with it.
Apart from his obvious lack of pace there is one crucial reason why having Peter Crouch in your team is a bad idea, and that is due to it being an easy option to suddenly resort to the long ball when things aren't going so well. Dawson already believes he is capable of 60 yard Hoddle-esque clearances and having someone 10ft tall to aim at would only encourage him. I for one don't want to watch that for the last 20 minutes of every game for the next 4 years.
So all in all this is a good news day. I very much doubt that Keano will be allowed to go to Liverpool, but at least now we can rest easy in the knowledge that if the unthinkable does happen, it will not result in a double slap in the face.
