[dropcap]G[/dropcap]oal scorers are judged on stats. The best net at a rate of a goal every two games and usually command the highest fees in the transfer market. Jordan Rhodes has been scoring goals for years yet is still only 24. He began his career at Ipswich but it was only after he joined Huddersfield Town that he began breaking records left right and centre.
He signed for Huddersfield in 2009 and in October that year he broke one of Dixie Dean’s records with a hat trick of headers, inside eight minutes, as Exeter were beaten 4-0. He finished that campaign, 2009-10, with 23 goals in all competitions. The following season, despite missing games through injury, he still managed to finish as Town’s top scorer with 22 goals.
Jordan started the following season with 13 goals in his first 13 games and also became the first Huddersfield player since the 1920s to score back to back hat tricks. He also netted five of Town’s goals in the 6-0 victory over Wycombe and that season saw him record a total of six hat tricks in his impressive tally of 36 goals.
In August 2012 Jordan Rhodes became the most expensive signing outside the Premier League when Blackburn Rovers paid a club record £8 million for his services. Since we ran a profile on Jordan Rhodes, Rhodes has continued his good form with Blackburn Rovers. Although he has not fired Rovers back into the top flight, as those signing him intended, the goals never the less continued to flow and since 2012 he has kept up his ratio, indeed has exceed the rate by netting 61 goals in 111 appearances.
Jordan Rhodes
By all accounts Blackburn manager, Gary Bowyer, is resigned to losing his talismatic striker but the question is, who would buy him. It is unlikely one of the big Premier League clubs will take a chance such is the current trend for foreign, established strikers, but Jordan is likely to get a move to somewhere like Swansea or maybe Stoke, Hull or Aston Villa and bed in to Premier League. None of those clubs would be his last top flight home. I also have a hunch that foreign shores may look more kindly on the player who is most definitely one of the best strikers outside the top flight and better than quite a few in it.
Apart from his number one asset, scoring goals, of all kinds, at the top ratio of one in two games, he is mobile for a big player, just over six feet tall. His game is about more than goals and he is very adept at setting up play, especially with a carefully placed header. He also has a willingness to chase lost causes and make decoy runs to create space for a teammate. He has a lot of Kevin Davies about him although he does score more goals.
As the transfer window winds down Jordan Rhodes may well get his top flight dream before too long.
