Peter Crouch: Rotated or just hated?

I just finished writing a comment in response to one of my readers (Jeff) calling into question my description of Peter Crouch as a “perpetual late-game substitute.” Jeff’s view – shared by a lot of people – is that Peter Crouch only plays so few games for Liverpool because Rafa Benitez operates a rotation system – nothing more. I don’t think this is true, so I decided to crunch some numbers. Note that this post doesn’t factor in European appearances – it’s late and I don’t have the energy to do it tonight. I’ll post again tomorrow with my conclusions adjusted for international appearances.

EDIT: Click here for part II, on Crouch in the Champions’ League. Believe it or not, he played in just 53% of Liverpool’s Champions’ League games last year, roughly the same percentage of games he played in the Premier League. Conventional wisdom is wrong, ladies and gentlemen.

A note as well, before we begin: Crouch has only had three injuries in his time at Liverpool: A broken nose on February 26th 2007, an achilles paratendinopathy on February 17th 2006, and a hamstring injury on August 3rd 2005. Injury has had no effect on his appearances this season.

So far this season, Crouch has played just 7 league games: starting in 2, coming on as a subsitute in 5, and scoring a grand total of zero (one assist this season against Fulham). He’s only played a full ninety minutes once, against Fulham. How does this compare to the rest of Liverpool’s team (bearing in mind that Benitez operates a rotation system)? This is a list of Liverpool players, in order of their number of starting league appearances this season (substitute appearances in parentheses):

J Reina 13 (0)
J Carragher 12 (0)
S Finnan 10 (1)
S Gerrard 10 (1)
A Arbeloa 10 (1)
S Hyypia 10 (0)
D Kuyt 9 (2)
J Riise 9 (2)
J Mascherano 8 (0)
J Pennant 8 (1)
F Torres 8 (3)
A Voronin 7 (3)
X Alonso 6 (0)
R Babel 4 (7)
Y Benayoun 4 (4)
D Agger 4 (1)
M Sissoko 5 (3)
P Crouch 2 (5)
F Aurelio 2 (0)
Lucas 1 (2)
H Kewell 1 (1)
R Putterill 0 (0)
S Leto 0 (0)
D Martin 0 (0)

What does this tell us? Firstly, it tells us that Crouch has been used, so far this Premier League campaign, as a subsitute. Anyone arguing otherwise is simply wrong. It also says that Crouch is Benitez’s fourth-choice striker, after Torres, Voronin, and Kuyt, irrespective of any rotation system.

Of course, we’re only a short way into the current season, so let’s look at last season. Bear in mind that Liverpool didn’t have Fernando Torres or Andrei Voronin in the squad to compete with Crouch for a starting berth back then, so you’d expect him to have made more of an impact:

First thing to notice: Benitez did not operate a squad-rotation system with regards to a number of key players, such as Gerrard, Reina, Carragher, Finnan, Riise, and Alonso. Crouch wasn’t considered important enough to be one of these immune players. Once again, starting appearances first (substitute appearances in parentheses)

S Gerrard 35 (1)
J Reina 35 (0)
J Carragher 34 (1)
S Finnan 32 (1)
J Riise 29 (4)
X Alonso 29 (3)
D Kuyt 27 (7)
D Agger 23 (4)
C Bellamy 23 (4)
S Hyypia 23 (0)
J Pennant 20 (14)
P Crouch 19 (13)
M Sissoko 15 (1)
M Gonzalez 14 (11)
Luis Garcia 11 (6)
F Aurelio 10 (7)
B Zenden 9 (7)
A Arbeloa 8 (1)
J Mascherano 7 (0)
R Fowler 6 (10)
J Dudek 2 (0)
G Paletta 2 (1)
E Insua 2 (0)
S Warnock 1 (0)
D Padelli 1 (0)
J Kromkamp 1 (0)
D Guthrie 0 (3)
J Hobbs 0 (0)
D Martin 0 (0)
H Kewell 0 (2)
N El Zhar 0 (3)
S Darby 0 (0)
L Peltier 0 (0)
P Anderson 0 (0)
M Roque 0 (0)
F Sinama Pongolle 0 (0)
J Smith 0 (0)

Conclusions? He played more regularly last season, but that’s to be expected without Fernando Torres and Andrei Voronin on the squad. Crouch was Benitez’s 13th most used player even before Torres showed up – and this despite the fact that, clearly, some players are used by Benitez on a consistent basis.

The point of all this is that Crouch isn’t playing rarely because Benitez is operating a rotation system – many more players have played many more games than him despite the system. If Crouch were a top striker stymied by rotation, he wouldn’t rank 18th in his number of starts at Liverpool this season and 13th last season; he wouldn’t be Benitez’s 4th-choice striker by some margin this season; and if Crouch were seen as a first-team player rather than an impact substitute, he would be starting more games, rotation system or no.

Crouch’s problem isn’t squad rotation: it’s that Rafa Benitez doesn’t want to play him in the Premier League.