...and to fill his boots as he senses the opportunity to finish as the tournament's leading scorer.
The England striker could start a fourth successive match for Liverpool for only the third time this season, but he accepts that not even finishing the competition with more goals than luminaries such as Kaká, Ruud van Nistelrooy or Didier Drogba would earn him a place among Rafael BenÍtez's untouchables.
Crouch, having returned to action from an enforced rest after surgery on his broken nose, followed his Barclays Premiership hat-trick in the 4-1 victory over Arsenal by scoring in last week's win against PSV, to go with the goal he scored against them in the group stage. As the quarter-finalists lined up last night, only Kaká, the AC Milan forward, had scored more times in the competition.
The first of Crouch's six European goals came in the qualifying tie against Maccabi Haifa, but, considering he has enjoyed less field time than any of his illustrious rivals in the top ten scorers, his potency is noteworthy. "I'm in among the top scorers and I want to keep that going," he said. "I've enjoyed the Champions League. There is a special association with the European Cup at Anfield. We want to build on that."
Even though he is enjoying his best goalscoring season — including the five for England, he has surpassed the 21 he scored for Portsmouth and Aston Villa in 2001-02 — Crouch accepts that nothing he does will alter BenÍtez's rotation policy. But he brushes aside speculation that he wants to leave Anfield. If he departs, it will not be of his choosing.
"Every player wants to play in every game," Crouch said. "It can be frustrating when you're being rotated. You think you've played well in a game, you want to play the next match, but the manager has a different plan. If you see it's working, you can't complain too much. It's something that I accept at a big club: the manager wants to rest players and use other options. That's understandable.
"I've had a great time here. We won the FA Cup [last season], we're going well this season. I'd never want to leave Liverpool. With the new owners coming in, it's a very exciting time. If we have more money to spend, this should give us a chance to challenge seriously for the league."
With a top-four finish in the Premiership looking secure, Liverpool will guard against complacency this evening, despite the ease with which they won in Eindhoven. "We won't take PSV lightly," Crouch said.
The tall striker will have to go some to match Van Nistelrooy's haul of 14 for Manchester United in 2002-03, which, with 12 in the competition proper, stands as the Champions League record. But, having signed from Southampton for £7 million two months after Liverpool's 2005 triumph, Crouch has passively imbibed the intoxication the tournament can produce. "I was frustrated to miss the big one in Istanbul," he said. "The lads were still buzzing off it when I joined. That's only made me even hungrier."
Crouch, a frustrated observer of England's European Championship qualifying matches against Israel and Andorra last month, is eager to rejoin the international squad for the game in Estonia in June. He also hopes that England's youngsters progress in the 2007 Danone Nations Cup, a 40-country Fifa-backed tournament, the final of which will be held at Lyons's Stade Gerland on July 1. England's nine-a-side team will be selected from trials for 10 to 12-year-olds taking place at the moment.
"It's a fantastic tournament, like a World Cup for kids," Crouch, the UK ambassador for the tournament, said. But the Liverpool striker has a challenge of his own to meet first.