Edin Dzeko may not like it but with another one-man rescue act he is fast gaining the tag of ‘supersub’ for Manchester City. The burly Bosnian has only started four games yet his late brace at the Hawthorns took his early tally to six already and this continues a trend from last season where he was regularly relied upon to get the champions elect out of the mucky stuff.

When the label was put to him after the game yesterday Dzeko visibly bristled and reminded the interviewer that when he scores he plays, irrespective of whether it’s from the bench or the opening whistle, but while it’s understandable that a player of such quality would want to avoid the belittling term Edin should realise that he’s at least in good and famous company….

David Fairclough

The original twelfth man saviour. The copper-topped local lad began his bench heroics as a teen, scoring seven from six cameos – including memorably a 88th minute mazy effort that won the Merseyside derby – to help Liverpool topple QPR in a fiercely-fought title race.

A year later came the famous late decider against St Etienne that secured him forever in club legend and cast his nickname of ‘Supersub’ in stone. Fairclough can boast a 1-in-3 strike ratio for his 92 starts in nine years at Anfield – and was always a prolific scorer in the reserves – but it’s his 18 goals in 62 substitute appearances that people remember the most. Does this do a fine player a disservice? Perhaps. But we should consider the parnerships he needed to break up during this extraordinary era. First Toshack and Keegan, then Rush and Dalglish. Well, quite.

Ian Ormondroyd

The 1980’s Peter Crouch – nicknamed Stix by locals – quickly became a cult hero at Bradford for being thrown on in times of trouble to invariably poke home salvation with a gangly leg. 6ft 7 of skin and bone the human beanpole was apparently rubbish if selected from the start but with minutes to spare would cause chaos in any penalty box with his genetically modified Bambi-on-ice act.

Ormondroyd was then snapped up by Villa with long-ball merchant Graham Taylor presumably viewing him with the same lust Louis Walsh reserves for Irish boybands. A paltry return of 6 in 56 proved beyond doubt that the Yorkshire giant was best utilised from the bench.

David Platt

Here’s an interesting fact – in ten years of top level club football, until he joined Arsenal in 1995, the moon-headed midfielder made 355 appearances for Villa and Sampdoria amongst others and never once found himself on the sub’s bench.

Yet sometimes a single moment maketh the man and Platt will always be chiefly remembered for replacing a fading Steve McMahon in the 71st minute of a Round 16 game v Belgium in the 1990 World Cup and avoiding the imminent prospect of pens by doing this…..

There are some – and I am amongst that number – who attest that this was as technically exquisite as Van Basten’s beauty two years earlier.

Tore Andre Flo

In many ways the 90’s version of Dzeko the imposing Norwegian bagged 13 from the bench in 69 sub appearances and remains revered on the Bridge terraces to this day. Flo eventually grew tired at finding himself behind Gudjohnsen and Hasselbaink in the pecking order and demanded a move. Will Dzeko do similar?

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Second only to Fairclough as the most famous supersub of them all the baby-faced assassin made a career of adjusting his crosshairs from the bench before coming on and firing home.

Alex Ferguson once said the Norwegian was the only player he’d ever known to actively study the play from the sidelines – analysing a defender’s movement and flaws that he would capitalise upon later – and such astuteness paid off handsomely with an astonishing 28 goals from 150 sub’s appearances, the most fmous of course being the late, late winner in the Champion’s League final against Bayern.