The stat that shows Tim Cahill's Melbourne City stint a success

Melbourne City dropped a bombshell on Wednesday morning with the announcement of marquee striker Tim Cahill’s immediate exit from the club.   

The club confirmed the 38-year-old’s departure by mutual consent, with the Caltex Socceroos legend eager to chase more game time ahead of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.

Cahill joined City in August 2016 and helped the club earn their first piece of domestic silverware, netting the only goal in last year’s Westfield FFA Cup Final win over Sydney FC.

Arguably the striker’s most memorable City moment came in his debut in last season’s Melbourne Derby, scoring an incredible long-range strike against Victory which was later voted the goal of the season.

Now after less than a year and a half in the Victorian capital, Cahill’s time with City has come to an end.

So just how successful has Cahill’s City sojourn been? We take a look at the Opta data to find out.

TIM CAHILL (A-League stats since debut, Rd2 2016/17 season)

Games: 28, Wins: 12, Goals: 11, Headed goals: 6,  Shots: 30, Shots: 14, Passing accuracy: 81%

MELBOURNE CITY’S OVERALL PERFORMANCE

WHEN CAHILL PLAYED

Played: 28, Win: 12, Draw – 5, Loss – 11, Win rate – 43%

WHEN CAHILL DIDN’T PLAY

Played – 8 Wins – 3 Draw – 2 Loss – 3 Win rate – 38%

WHEN CAHILL SCORED FOR CITY

Played – 9 Wins – 4 Draw – 3 Loss – 2  Win rate – 44%

CAHILL PUNCHES ABOVE HIS WEIGHT

According to Opta’s ‘expected goals’ metric, Cahill’s 11 goals for City far exceeded the number of goals he was tipped to score during his time at the club.

The data predicted the striker should have netted four goals for City, with his output the best ‘overperformance’ of any player during his time in the league.

*Metric takes into account a range of factors such as conditions, opposition, shots, chances etc to determine an expected number of goals a player would net in a period of time.

LEADING THE WAY

Cahill netted 6 headed goals during his 28 games in the A-League, the most of any player during that period.

His 8 headed shots on target was also the most in the competition.