Peter Crouch set for Premier League return

Former Liverpool striker Peter Crouch is returning to the Premier League.

The 38-year-old is on his way to Burnley after a deal was struck with Championship outfit Stoke City (15th). 29-year-old striker Sam Vokes will go in the other direction as part of the deal, providing everything goes to plan.

If the deal is signed off, Crouch would be in contention to make his debut against his former club Southampton on Saturday.

Capped 42 times by England (22 goals), Crouch made the switch from Southampton to Anfield in the summer of 2005 for £7million. It took him some time to settle but he soon became an important member of Rafa Benitez’s squad. However, his stay wasn’t to be that that long. He was sold to Portsmouth for £11million in July 2008.

Back in 2005, Rafa said: “I’m delighted we have signed him. He is a good player with a lot of qualities and his arrival will give me more options up front.”

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Burnley will be the ninth club of Crouch’s 21-year professional career but he has always maintained that his spell with Liverpool was his most enjoyable.

Last year, Crouch commented: “The best period of my career came at Liverpool under Rafa Benitez.

“I was scoring goals regularly in a side that was challenging in the Champions League and we had real chances to be crowned as European champions in the 2007 final against AC Milan.

“I scored eight Champions League goals that season and we deserved to be in that final, but it wasn’t to be. That is one of the big regrets of my career because that final was there for us and it slipped away.

“We had a good Liverpool team then and I felt like a focal point of it. It was also a time when I was England’s centre-forward and I scored 11 goals for England in 2006 to highlight that I was doing something right at international level as well.”

Crouch made 134 appearances for Liverpool and scored 42 times.

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