There’s been a lot of talk this season as to whether Tottenham should be playing Keane and Defoe together, or Defoe and Crouch. There’s been less talk about the possibility of Crouch partnering Keane, but following the news that Defoe has broken his hand, this should be the forward line we see lining up against Bolton on Saturday.
Will it be a combination that works? Both players tend to be viewed as a foil for an out and out goalscorer, despite having decent scoring records themselves. The main thing with Crouch is that he cannot be left isolated. This happened to Crouch a lot at Liverpool, so Keane will need to play close to him.
This is entirely possible, as when Jenas plays in midfield rather that Huddlestone, Keane doesn’t have to drop back so much. Crouch and Keane played out the last twenty minutes together against Preston and scored three goals between them during their brief partnership. It will be interesting to see how they fare against the ‘£20m rated’ Gary Cahill (come to think of it, it will be interesting to see how good he is too).
With Defoe injured and with Pavlyuchenko and Dos Santos out, we now have a fully fledged injury crisis up front to compliment our well established injury crisis in central defence. Roll on the international break.
