Earnie must recapture goal touch and smile

Mar 19 2008 by Paul Abbandonato, Western Mail

ROB EARNSHAW being axed by Wales has been an accident waiting to happen.

The only thing that surprises me is that we’ve had to wait up until this point for the moment to arrive.

What happens next, it seems, is down to little Earnie himself.

If he can recapture his goal scoring form at club level, and play with that smile on his face again, Earnshaw can expect to be recalled a darned sight quicker than it took to finally drop him.

If he continues to be little more than a bit-part player with Derby (or whichever club), Earnshaw will find himself eighth-choice in John Toshack’s pecking order.

The way Wales are panning out, I envisage just one player up front when the World Cup qualifiers begin.

The pecking order is probably as follows. Craig Bellamy, Freddy Eastwood, U21 starlet Ched Evans, Craig Davies, David Cotterill, Daniel Nardiello, Jermaine Easter and then Earnshaw.

However harsh that may sound to little Earnie, it’s probably the reality of the situation right at this moment in time.

When Toshack was first appointed Wales manager, I recall writing that the key to success in the early days was somehow integrating Earnshaw into the starting XI.

His goals would make the difference between Wales winning matches, or not.

But, for whatever reason, it simply hasn’t happened.

Earnie has only scored four times in Toshack’s 31 games at the helm ... against Trinidad and Tobago (two), Cyprus and San Marino.

The goals have simply dried up for a jack-in-the-box player, who, in the early days, scored the winner against Germany, stunned the Scots with a hat-trick and seemed to find the net just about every time he pulled on the red shirt.

No less a judge than Ian Rush predicted Earnshaw would break his own 28-goal record tally for Wales.

Some astute judges even suggested at the time that Earnshaw should take Bellamy’s place in the team.

In hindsight, a downright stupid idea, but such was the esteem with which Earnshaw was held.

It would be entirely wrong to say Earnshaw’s career dipped the moment he left Cardiff City in a £3m move, because it didn’t.

He scored goals in the Premiership with West Brom and got a bagful with Norwich in the Championship.

But Bryan Robson made him little more than a bit-part player with the Baggies, successive Derby County managers have done likewise at Pride Park. It appears Toshack is following suit with Wales.

At the very least, Earnshaw is at the crossroads of his career and, from a Wales perspective, it could go either way from here on in.

There have always been question marks about the way Earnshaw actually fits into a team ethic.

Does he hold the ball up well enough for a front man? Does he link play properly? Does he create enough goals for his team-mates?

Even if the answer to those three were no, no and no again, it became utterly irrelevant given the volume of goals Earnshaw himself scored.

But once those stopped coming, managers at club and international level were bound to question whether other players would be better suited to what they wanted than Earnshaw.

The best thing about the early Earnshaw was that everything was done with a big beaming smile on his face.

He would light up the Millennium Stadium or Ninian Park crowd with an electric moment of magic ... be it a goal, an overhead kick, a trick here or there to bamboozle defenders, whatever.

When Earnshaw was a Wales substitute, just the sight of him warming up to come on would get the crowd buzzing.

But it seems a while since that has happened and, unless Earnshaw regains his place in the squad, it may be a while before we see it again.

I’m not convinced yet that Wales can afford to do without a fit and firing Earnshaw.

What we need is for him to be firing again to force the manager’s hand.