Robert Earnshaw's West Bromwich Albion career will forever be remembered for three things - his big teeth, an enormous car and a monumental missed opportunity.

It was a relationship that should have worked but, somehow, the sum of the parts never made much of a total. Earnshaw and Albion, or at least Earnshaw and Bryan Robson, simply never suited each other.

This Saturday, the enigmatic Welshman returns to The Hawthorns for the first time since January when he swapped a place on the Albion substitutes bench, albeit one softened by Premiership cushions, for a regular place in the Norwich City line-up.

He has not looked back. Eighteen goals in 28 league starts since going to Carrow Road have made a substantial repayment of the #2.75 million it took to expedite the transfer.

So far this season, Earnshaw is the Championship's second-highest scorer - his ten goals placing him one behind Cardiff City's Michael Chopra - and just as he did when he appeared on a regular basis at The Hawthorns he will once again be his side's main attacking threat.

And, with thanks to Kevin Keegan for the following, there is little doubt that the striker would love it, really love it, if he was to finish on the winning side this weekend.

Much of that motivation will be down to the fact that Robson never really gave Earnshaw the first-team security that most goalscorers crave.

The 25-year-old did not contribute sufficiently outsidethe penalty area for Robson so that when the goals dried up - as they inevitably do for periods - he was jettisoned from the starting XI.

That left him trying to nourish himself in the Premiership on a diet of half-chances and substitute appearances, though it must be noted he managed to do so extremely well.

Robson gave the Wales international only 22 league starts with an end-product of 12 goals - a decent-enough return for a team that has lacked a natural hitman since Lee Hughes fell from grace three seasons ago.

But perhaps a more telling statistic is the one that puts Earnshaw second behind Thierry Henry in the goals to minutes-on-the-pitch ratio in the top flight and were that figure to be given a weighting according to league position, it would reflect favourably on the former.

Earnshaw was the last Albion player to reach double figures - the 11 goals he bagged in the Great Escape somehow seem less important than the three Kevin Campbell ended with that season.

Where would Albion have been without his hat-trick against Charlton Athletic or the one he scored at Old Traf-ford to give his side a point in the penultimate match?

To their credit most Albion followers have always been supportive of Earnshaw. Perhaps, unlike Robson, they appreciate how difficult it has been playing up front for their team in recent years.

Earnshaw's return in 2004-05 is still a five-year high. Hughes managed the same total the year before, as did Scott Dobie in 2001-02 and it is not too difficult to imagine Albion avoiding relegation last season had the former Cardiff man stayed with them.

But that's in the past. Robson, who so badly misjudged his value, is out of a job while Earnshaw is back to the form that persuaded two clubs to part with a large section of #6 million for his services.