Peter Crouch: He doesn’t play in Europe, either

Part II of my statistical analysis of Peter Crouch takes a look at his European record, and reveals that conventional wisdom on the player is flat out wrong. Part I, on Crouch and the Premier League, is here. The conventional wisdom:

Rafa Benitez operates a rotation system, with some players appearing more in the Champions League squad and others in the Premier League squad. Crouch may start few Premier League games, but he’s a regular in the Champions League.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Let’s look at the evidence.

First off, the current Champions League season. Liverpool have played 6 games (not counting today’s), for 4 of which Peter Crouch was in the starting 11. He didn’t play in one game, and came on as a substitute in the other. This means Crouch has started in 66% of Liverpool’s Champions’ League games so far this season. This seems high, but last season is far more revealing:

At this time last season, Crouch had played four, come on as a substitute in one, and remained on the bench for a final game (against PSV Eindhoven). This is exactly the same percentage of starts as this season (66%). By the end of the last Champions’ League campaign, however, Crouch had only started in a total of 8 Champions’ League games – just 53%. He was substituted into the squad in all but one of Liverpool’s games that season, but most of those substitutions were fairly late in the game – in the 52nd, 65th, 74th, 78th, 89th and 89th minutes (the latter two 89th minute substitutions were both against Barcelona). Furthermore, he was brought off in many of the 8 games he started, playing a full 90 minutes only a few times that season.

So, in last season’s Champions’ League, Peter Crouch started 53% of Liverpool’s games. In the last Premiership season, he started 50% of Liverpool’s games. Still think Benitez prefers playing Crouch in Europe? I’m not seeing it.

How about the rotation system? Well, it does exist, but look at the appearance list for Liverpool last Champions’ League season (same format as before, starts first, then substitute appearances in parentheses):

J Reina 15 (0)
J Carragher 14 (0)
X Alonso 13 (3)
D Agger 13 (0)
S Finnan 13 (0)
J Riise 13 (0)
S Gerrard 10 (3)
D Kuyt 10 (1)
J Pennant 10 (5)
P Crouch 9 (6)
C Bellamy 8 (5)
M Sissoko 8 (2)
B Zenden 8 (4)
S Hyypia 5 (0)
M Gonzalez 4 (5)
A Arbeloa 4 (1)
J Mascherano 4 (0)
F Aurelio 3 (3)
S Warnock 2 (1)
R Fowler 1 (3)
J Dudek 1 (0)
G Paletta 1 (1)
L Peltier 1 (0)
D Guthrie 1 (0)
E Insua 0 (0)
H Kewell 0 (1)
J Kromkamp 0 (0)
S Darby 0 (0)
N El Zhar 0 (0)
D Martin 0 (0)
D Padelli 0 (0)
M Roque 0 (1)
F Sinama Pongolle 0 (1)
J Smith 0 (0)
P Anderson 0 (0)
J Hobbs 0 (0)

Crouch moves up to Liverpool’s 10th most played player in the Champions’ League last year, as opposed to 13th most played player in the Premier League. This isn’t a huge difference, as the percentages I mentioned earlier attest, but it does make him (barely) one of Benitez’s most-played 11. He is clearly subject to rotation, though, in a way that many of his teammates are not. Despite the fact that he’s played the same number of games so far this Champions’ League as the last one, bear in mind that Liverpool have two new strikers this season, both of whom have ranked more highly than Crouch in Benitez’s Premier League selection process (Voronin and Torres), so it’s very likely that Crouch will play fewer Champions’ League games than last year as the season wears on.

So, to sum up. Peter Crouch is not a first-team player at Liverpool, regardless of whether you consider the Champions’ League or the Premier League. He is not “primarily used in the Champions’ League” – he’s rotated regardless of whether Liverpool are playing in England or in Europe. Last season, he started in just 50% of Liverpool’s Premier League games, but still only started in 53% of Liverpool’s Champions’ League games.

Why do people think Crouch is a regular for Liverpool in Europe? Probably because his scoring record – 8 last year – is the team’s highest in the Champions’ League, with Riise and Gerrard tied for second place with 3. He’s also tied for highest scorer this season, having scored 3 goals along with Kuyt and Benayoun. Crouch is Liverpool’s most prolific European goalscorer, something which sticks in the mind far more than his number of starting appearances. The truth, though, is that, rotation system or no, Peter Crouch hardly plays in Europe more than in the Premier League – he is, to repeat a phrase I used over the weekend, a late game substitute.