Craig Davies' 2012/2013 season so far by the numbers

Raise your hand if you are a Bolton Wanderers fan that actively follows Barnsley matches. How many of you is that? Oh. Well for the (vast) majority of you, we've done a bit of research. We wanted to learn as much about Craig Davies as we could without having seen the matches in which he has played.

In the table at the bottom of this piece, you'll see the date, the match, if & how many goals Davies scored, and the minutes in which the goals came.

This season, Craig Davies played 20 of Barnsley's 26 matches. He missed all six of those through injury with five a result of a hamstring injury picked up at Charlton and the sixth a knock picked up after Sheffield Wednesday. Of those 20 matches, he has started 19. The one substitute appearance came against Birmingham City in December after suffering the leg injury and missing Millwall the previous week.

Of the 26 games that Barnsley had played so far, they have used two or more strikers in all but one game. The one game where the Tykes went with only one up front came during Davies' hamstring injury layoff. Barnsley went with three forwards on five different occasions.

So far this season, Craig Davies has scored eight league goals for Barnsley. His best-ever return in the Championship is 11 goals for Barnsley last season. Two seasons ago, he did manage 23 goals in League Two for Chesterfield. Four of Davies' eight goals this season did come in one match though, against Birmingham City in September. Three of those goals came in the first half of matches and five came in the second half.

Craig Davies is in a scoring drought at the moment, having not scored in the last eight games that he's appeared in (seven of which were starts).

The one bit of information that we were most interested in is seeing if Craig Davies would fit into Dougie Freedman's favored 4-5-1 system. Looking at the table above, Davies has played exactly zero (0, zip, nada, nil) games where he was the lone striker. Seven of his eight goals this season came in matches where Barnsley elected to play two up front. The remaining goal (with three men in forward positions) was a penalty against Brighton & Hove Albion.

It'll be extremely interesting to see what this means for Bolton Wanderers and who is forced to adapt to what system. Will Bolton try to go for more firepower or will Craig Davies have to learn how to be up top on his own?

Below is a table of every league game Barnsley has played thus far this season with Craig Davies a member of the side.