The surprise Portsmouth name ranked by Peter Crouch as one of the most underrated two-footed talents he’s played with

The former Pompey striker made the surprise assessment the midfielder and Spurs’ Ledley King are the two standouts as men who could use either foot equally well.

Crouch has played with a host of outstanding talents in a career which has seen him operate with the likes of Spurs and Liverpool.

And it was Quashie who judged worthy of mention when he was asked who was the best two-footed player he’d worked with in his Daily Mail column.

The pair were team-mates at Fratton Park in Crouch’s season with Pompey after arriving as a £1.5m record signing in 2001, and later worked together at Southampton.

Crouch said: ‘I may surprise you with this but Ledley King is the answer.

‘We were in Tottenham’s youth team together and you would see him doing these tricks with his left foot – round the worlds, step-overs, keepy-ups. He did it all so effortlessly, it was just insane.

‘Then we would go into a match and he would start pinging these passes with his right foot – 20, 30 40 yards, all like a laser.

‘We would say to him: “Ledley, are you right or left footed?” and he wouldn’t be able to answer. Another underrated two-footed player was Nigel Quashie.

‘I played with some phenomenal players, such as Steven Gerrard and Gareth Bale, who were predominantly one-footed. It didn’t matter to Ledley, however. He was just as comfortable with the ball on either side.’