JD was a typical stat padder striker, pretty sure he had a woeful scoring record against the trad top 4 of that era. I'd not argue Crouch delivered value on his fee, particularly as we recouped all the money we paid for him when we got shot of him to Stoke, something we failed to do with either Keane or Defoe incidentally. Thing is in my opinion, which is an opinion that can be backed by the same metrics people are using in this very thread to defend Crouch, we already had a better striker at the club in Roman Pavlyuchenko, and Crouch came in for a fee to play ahead of Pav for no particular reason other than he was tall and perceived to have a "good touch for a big fella". I didn't see much of that from him for us tbh, he was very aerially inept considering his height, referees seemed to have his card marked before the game began.
I'm aware it does come off a touch personal but for me watching Crouch play for us when we were trailing in a match was just as bad as watching the Conte team at 1-0 up IMO. Just relentlessly turning over possession as desperation sets in and everyone's desperately hoofing it up to the big man. I do think he's a pretty funny and decent bloke, I don't hate him as a person, but as a footballer he was painful to watch for me.
I actually said previously I thought he was the better striker of the two when Crouch came in, he had a very difficult first season for us but I think he turned into a very efficient squad player for us, I remember one particular purple patch where he was scoring with every start and sub appearance but couldn't find his way into the first XI under Harry, I don't know if maybe he wasn't a very good trainer, language barrier or something but he actually performed to a standard that suggested he was the best of all 4 of him, Keane, Defoe and Crouch when that was our striker quartet. I certainly thought so at the time, although he was admittedly limited and did blow a bit when he started after 70 mins or so.