Daryl Murphy has expressed his surprise that ex-Town youngster Jordan Rhodes, who lies in wait at Ewood Park this weekend, is not plying his trade in the Premier League.

Scotland striker Rhodes, who has netted 78 goals in 141 league appearances for Blackburn, initially left Portman Road to sign for Huddersfield in 2009 and his scoring statistics while with the Terriers were even more eye-catching — 87 in 148 outings in all competitions.

Rovers, who spent £8 million to sign him three years ago, rejected bids of around £12 million from both Middlesbrough and Hull, and stated they had no intention of selling their prize asset to any of their Championship rivals.

Rhodes, 25, has scored five goals in the current campaign, all of them coming in the space of his last four games, and Murphy, still waiting to break his duck this term, would love to embark on a similar scoring streak to kick-start his season in style.

Murphy said: “The manager has shown great faith in me by continuing to pick me but there’s only so long that he can keep doing that if I’m not producing the goods.

“With the competition for places that we have now it’s a nice extra bit of extra pressure on me to start scoring because if I’m not doing that I’ll find myself on the bench.

“I scored 27 last season and it was always going to be difficult to repeat that amount of goals — but let’s start off with getting one and seeing where we go from there.

“My target is still to get 20 for the season and to be honest I don’t see why that can’t be achieved. But I need to be consistent and playing regularly to do it. It’s all up to me.

“As for Jordan, he’s a quality player. I’ve known about him since I initially joined Ipswich on loan and you only have to look at his record. It’s unbelievable, the goals he has scored, and from talking to the lads they tell me he’s a really nice, down to earth fella as well, which is even more pleasing.

“We’ve a lot of respect for him and we are fully aware of the danger he poses. I’m very surprised he is still in the Championship and no one has taken him into the Premier League.

“I think people question whether he gets involved in the game that much but if you’re scoring goals it doesn’t really matter, does it?

“More often than not, when he plays he scores and he’s always a threat. He’s the type that you have to watch all the time because even if he’s not doing it you know he is likely to pop up at some stage and score a goal.

“I’m surprised he’s not in the Premier League now but I’m sure he will be at some stage.”

Photo: Action Images

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