The Rubbish! Tactic Of The Week

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Rubbish! Tactic of the Week, aka Tactical Observances of an “Ignoramus. ”

This first edition of Rubbish! is an observance of mine & my colleague, Chad, of manager Harry Redknapp’s choice of how to employ forward Peter Crouch against Manchester United this past sunday in Spurs’ nil-nil draw with the Red Devils.  

Redknapp employed Crouch as a “lone” striker up top in a 4-4-2 (which was more like a 4-4-1-1 as Crouch was more forward & the only real forward positionally) with Rafael Van Der Vaart playing in a free role behind Crouch.   

Now, by itself the tactic itself isn’t a bad one though my colleague and Spurs supporter, Chad, would probably disagree.  I think I understand what Harry was trying to do- against a physical, central defensive pairing of Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, the 6’7″ Crouch was probably the inevitable choice over an often incosistent (albeit better overall striker) Roman Pavlyuchenko and the dimunitive Jermain Defoe.  The idea was likely “pump the ball to Crouchy and let Van Der Vaart and (Gareth) Bale and (Aaron) Lennon run onto the flicks and knockdowns and get Man U’s backline to turn and play facing their goal as they chase all the quick players.”  

However, where the tactic became rubbish! was when it soon became evident that Spurs’ crossing was pretty awful and the service to Crouch more or less useless.  Bale’s deliveries were especially disappointing as the young wide man hadn’t put much of foot, pass, shot, etc. wrong all season long.  

So the lack of good service made Crouch even more ineffective as usual and led to him starring in the 2011 edition of Bambi On Ice, and thus, the run onto knockdowns and flicks to Spurs’ quick players were non-existent and made the tactical choice rubbish! 

I know the English are forever in love with big, physical target man (England love physical players and physical traits in general and is one reason why I think they will rarely have a REAL shot to win a World Cup again, but that’s a topic for another day) but in my estimation too often these types of forwards are too one-dimensional for the modern game and especially against someone who has seen it all tactically like Man U’s manager, Alex Ferguson.  Now, some people would disagree that Crouch is a one dimensional target man but save for a few month period when he was with Liverpool a few seasons ago which included a hat-trick against Arsenal (though this blogger thinks the real Crouch was kidnapped by aliens & replaced with a Gerd Müller-possessed Crouch that day), Crouch has never been anything more than a tall heading threat.  The people who claim he’s good with the ball at his feet (even for a big man) clearly have forgotten what a powerful English striker who was both good with his feet and good in the air looked like.  

Crouch likely should’ve been replaced with Pavlyuchenko at some point in the match rather than Crouch going the full 90.  Spurs could’ve still used the aerial threat albeit to a lesser extent (Pav is useable in the air though not to Crouch’s level, obviously) and they could have been more of a threat with the ball to feet to a target man plus with Pav, he’s more of a natural finisher than Crouch, albeit an inconsistent one at times.  Point is, it was clear early on that Crouch and the high-ball target man strategy was pretty ineffective and that a change in forward types may have put the Man U backline under more pressure as Spurs were arguably having the better of the attacking play.  

“Me rubbish? Oy, Corey and Chad!… 
I feel yer’a bit harsh on me, lads.”  

So, feel free to lambaste this opinion and show Chad & I to be delusional in the comments box but we both felt Crouch was ineffective rubbish!  For me Crouch is rubbish! most of the time much less on Sunday but I’ll be the first to admit I’m a proponent of the quick, passing ground game with dribblers a là Arsenal and Barca.  

What say you?  Do you agree or are Chad and I completely out of our gourds?