Crouch's stats are impressive, but Defoe should go to South Africa

In 35 games, he has scored no fewer than 18 goals even if the last couple, against Belarus at Wembley, came against a pitiful defence with a fallible keeper.

The word is that Fabio Capello is unlikely to take him, seeing him, I'd fear, as a splendid rabbit killer. When the goals do come, they tend to come against inferior opposition.

Undoubted stars

Let me say at once that I have admired the towering blond Crouch for many years. He is now playing, if sporadically but certainly expensively, for Spurs, the club which originally had him for nothing, but carelessly let him slip across London with the then Tottenham manager, Gerry Francis to Queens Park Rangers.

Lanky though he is, he has a very neat toehold on the ground, but what he doesn't have is pace and dynamism.

But has Emile Heskey, whom Capello does seem likely to pick? Injured, he was missing from the Belarus game as indeed England's two undoubted stars, Steven Gerard and the refulgent Wayne Rooney.

But Heskey hardly ever scored for England and has been on the fringe of this season's Aston Villa team.

The theory that he is an essential foil, a maker of space, for Wayne Rooney casts one's mind back to the 1966 World Cup finals, when Alf Ramsey insisted that what Roger Hunt did was "made space". Which incurred ribald criticism.

In the final, in fact Hunt squandered two splendid first half chances to make and to score goals against West Germany.

Pattern

For my own part, I'd prefer to see Jermain Defoe, with all that pace. An injured hand kept him out last week. He actually scored goals, got two of them against Holland, when England rose from the dead to draw 2-2.

That would impose a different England pattern, but why not? Then of course, there is the eternal mind-boggling question of David Beckham, ludicrously chosen as man of the match against Belarus by Steve Bruce, the Sunderland manager. Was he joking?

Even Capello himself made a joke of it, recalling that Beckham had hardly played for half an hour. And in using him, whatever the joy of deluded fans, meant that James Milner, a natural winger and another half-time hero of the match in Holland, came on as a left back!

You could hardly judge a depleted England team on this form, least of all Rio Ferdinand, who stayed in the side despite a catalogue of mistakes at club and international level.

But who could replace him? Scan the ranks of premiership defences and it is hard to see. Cahill of Aston Villa?

Perhaps, but he's unproved yet. At right back, Glen Johnson continues to look splendid going forward yet all too vulnerable in defence. Yet again, who could replace him?

Better news in goal, where Ben Foster, given another chance, after an awful season so far, responded with a glorious late save, one handed and spectacular, to stop what looked a sure goal. Perhaps this will give him back the confidence he has lost.

This is an England team without a playmaker. Spain surely are the out and out favourites at the moment, having that dazzling modified array of players like Xazi and Fabregas.

Frank Lampard is an industrious, intelligent central midfielder with a powerful shot, but he is no Paul Gascoigne.

The writer is a soccer expert based in London.