January
Newsfile

Newsfile Archive

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times."   So begins
Charles Dickens's classic A Tale of Two Cities.  So, too, might begin an analysis of the two Citys we've seen so far this year.  There's the City featuring Robert Earnshaw.  Ah, bliss.  Then there's the City without Earnshaw.  Just about the dregs.  Truly, a tale of two Citys, the best and the worst.

City's played 28 league matches so far, winning 14, drawing 10, and losing 4.  Goals for and against stands at 60 and 32, or +28.  Check what happens to these numbers when we break them down according to when Earnshaw plays and when he doesn't, when he starts and when he doesn't, and when he scores and doesn't.

* Earnshaw's played in 23 of City's 28 league tilts so far.  Of those 23, City's won 13, drawn 7, and lost 3.  Goals for/against stands at 56/28.  Of the five Earnshaw has missed, City's won one (way back on opening day at Exeter), drawn 3, and tied one.  Goals for/against in these five is 4/4.

* Earnshaw's started 17 of the 28 league matches.  City's mark in these 17 shows 12 wins, 3 losses, and 2 draws.  GF/GA stands at 45/19. When Earnshaw hasn't started, City's record shows only 2 wins, 7 draws, and 2 losses.  The GF/GA figure for these 11 is 15/13.

* Earnshaw has scored in 11 of City's 28 matches.  City is unbeaten in games in which Earnie scores, sporting a gaudy 10-1-0 mark and an impressive GF/GA of 35/11.  When Earnshaw doesn't score, City's an entirely different club, showing 4 wins, 9 draws, and 4 losses, with an unremarkbale 25/21 GF/GA.

Some more figures:

* City's won every single one of the last 10 matches in which Earnshaw's scored.   City's scored three of more goals in 7 of the 10, including each of the last six such games.  The only match Earnie's scored in that City didn't win was the 2-2 draw at Barnet back on August 26.

* Earnshaw has scored in 9 of the 17 he's started.  City's record in these nine matches stands at 9-0-0, GF/GA at 29/8.

* Earnshaw has come on as a substitute in six matches, four times while Gould was in charge, two under Cork.   City didn't win its first match with Earnshaw coming off the bench until the Plymouth home fixture on January 20.  The overall mark when Earnie subs shows a win, 4 draws, and a loss, GF/GA at 11/9.

* How do the rest of the Bluebirds do when Earnshaw's on or off the pitch?  When Earnie doesn't play, City averages 0.8 goals per match (4 goals in 5 games).  When he plays, the other Bluebirds score over twice as often, 1.78 goals per match (but only 1.33 per match when he subs).  When he starts, other City players score a robust 1.94 goals per match.  So, it's not just that he scores and City wins.  It's that when he plays, and especially when he starts, other Bluebirds score more often as well.

* The genius that is Alan Cork might just come down to a single move, that of installing Earnshaw in the starting lineup.  Under Gould, Earnshaw got but four league starts and didn't even see any action until the third game when he came in off the bench at Barnet.  He didn't get his first league start until the seventh game, the Halifax home fixture on September 12.  After starting in two goalless affairs against Kidderminster and Hull, Earnshaw went back to the bench at Orient.  This move resulted in quite possibly City's worst effort this season and the end of the Gould-as-manager experiment.

Cork put Earnshaw back in the starting lineup for his first match at Carlisle and kept him there.  City came alive, winning 8 and drawing 2 of the new manager's first 10 games in charge.  With Earnshaw starting all 10, City scored 27 times (with Earnie netting eight of them). 

Overall, City's mark with Cork managing and Earnie playing stands at 11 wins, 3 draws, and a single loss (at Plymouth).  With Earnie playing and Gould in charge, City won but twice in 8 tries, drawing 4 and losing the other 2.

* While it's true that City hasn't won a single match in eight against promotion rivals Chesterfield, Brighton, Orient, Rochdale, and Southend (losing twice and drawing the other six), it's also true that Earnshaw has missed three and started but one of the eight (at Chesterfield).  Although Earnshaw hasn't scored a single goal against any of these five rivals, you have to wonder how City's record in these matches might look had he started more than one of them.

John Heyda
in Middletown, Ohio USA

Cheers John. Its easy to assume Earnie can start every game and these stats are in no way a critisism of the club for not always starting with him, obviously at the moment he is injured and cannot start. It just goes to show how much we have relied on the little fella.