Send The Big Man On

I know this probably won't be read in South Africa...

Given that we're hearing that Fabio Capello is thinking of choosing between Defoe and Heskey as the 2nd striker against Algeria, here are some facts that might be of interest:

Heskey: 7 international goals (4 in friendlies) in 10 years. 57 caps. Scored in 12% of games played.
Defoe: 11 international goals (5 in friendlies) in 6 years. 40 caps. Scored in 27% of games played.
Crouch: 21 international goals (11 in friendlies) in 4 years. 38 caps. Scored in 55% of games played.

So Peter Crouch is twice as likely to score as Defoe and 4.5 times more likely than Heskey.

The argument given against Crouch is that he hasn't scored against any "big" teams. OK - Defoe scored against Holland in a friendly last year, but Crouch has scored against Greece, Uruguay, Croatia, Mexico - teams that are in the current World Cup.

My Capello, you would be mad not to make Peter Crouch your first choice striker to support Rooney up-front. Why else did you give him the number 9 shirt?