Town boss Mick McCarthy rates former Blues frontman Jordan Rhodes as one of the top goalscorers in the Championship. Blackburn striker Rhodes, 23, faces his old club for the first time today when the Blues are in action at Ewood Park.
"He’s a goalscorer, there’s no question about that,” McCarthy said. "Somebody said to me ‘They got that right, signing him’.
"I said, ‘Well, he did cost £8 million and bundles of money a week!’. So far, so good, they have. But for that kind of money you’ve got to do it in the Premier League.
"We watched their game with Bristol City last week and it was a bit like ours, there wasn’t a lot in it. Two goals from Jordan Rhodes was the difference.
"He’s certainly a predator. The two goals he got last week were excellent, from not having that much in the game. In terms of being a goalscorer, he’s up there with the best in the Championship.
"He’s one to watch on Saturday,” the Town manager added. "Actually, he’s not one to watch, he’s one to stop!”
Whether Rhodes will make it in the Premier League may depend on which club he is with, McCarthy believes: "It remains to be seen. You get in a team that gets promoted and suddenly the goalscorer that’s been scoring all the goals ends up having to do a little bit more, a bit more defending, you don’t have as much of the ball, you don’t get as many crosses, as many passes and you don’t score as many goals by default.
"If he goes and plays for one of the top teams, who knows? But, finishers like him can generally do it anywhere.”
He says the Scotland international was on his radar when he was manager of Wolves but that he wouldn’t have spent the size of fee Blackburn paid for him: "Everybody was looking at him, but we were never going to spend £8 million on him.”
Former manager Roy Keane sold Rhodes to Huddersfield in the summer of 2009 - "It was a chance I took after receiving an offer which was good for the club” — after he had made only 10 Town sub appearances, scoring one goal, for a fee which, with a 10% sell-on from his switch to Blackburn, moved close to £1.5 million.
McCarthy admitted that he’s not fully aware of the the ins and outs of Rhodes’s controversial exit but says it’s easy to judge these situations with hindsight: "I don’t really know Jordan, I know his old man [former Town keeper-coach] Andy better, I played at Barnsley with him. He’s got a remarkable goalscoring record, certainly. "I have to know the full circumstances of it. From what I hear, it seems to me that Connor Wickham had come on to the scene as well and was Jordan Rhodes scoring all the goals here that he’s scoring now? "It would be easy for me to join in, in hindsight, somebody having scored all those goals, but from what I gather there was a move set up for him not really from the management. He wasn’t getting a game, Connor Wickham came on the scene and then there was a move set up. "I don’t know. Roy Keane was here and I don’t know how many times Roy had even seen him. I don’t know the circumstances. "But it’s always the same when somebody leaves a club and then does well, everybody wants to point the finger at the bloke who got shot of him or sold him. I’m not going to join in because there’ll be more to it than meets the eye, believe me.” Former Blues loanee DJ Campbell joined Blackburn on a similar basis for the remainder of the season yesterday but McCarthy’s not sure whether the QPR man will go straight into the Blackburn team: "He’s still our leading goalscorer but I don’t know whether he’s certain [to play]. "I’m sure Jordan Rhodes will be playing, whether [Rovers manager Michael Appleton] plays those two together or not I don’t know.” He says there are similarities between Campbell and Rhodes: "He’s another you don’t really see for a lot of the game. He’s not one of those that will be knocking people around, winning headers about the place or dictating proceedings, you might not see him. "DJ was very similar. I think in the Charlton game DJ missed a penalty, he didn’t really have a lot in the game, then scored a great goal having missed a couple of chances. "And I think Jordan Rhodes is the same, they’re a little bit ghost-like. You don’t see them, you don’t pick them up but they always have that happy knack of putting the ball in the net, which is a real threat.” Speaking as a former centre-half, McCarthy says that type of player isn’t easy to deal with: "Those kind of guys, they can be horrible to play against because you think you’re doing great, they’ve not had a kick and you’re dominating proceedings and suddenly you find you’re one down and the guy who has scored is the guy who has not had a kick, it was probably his first one. "They just have a happy knack of finding space and time and room in the box and scoring.”
Rhodes nets his only senior goal for Town in the 1-1 home draw with Cardiff on April 9th 2008What to read next:
Join us in the chatroom to discuss the game as it unfolds with hundreds of other Town fans.
Town boss Kieran McKenna has made four changes for this afternoon’s game against Leicester City at the King Power Stadium with George Hirst, Leif Davis, Jens Cajuste and Jack Clarke returning to the XI.
Have you predicted the Leicester score yet? Thirty seven per cent of TWTD members are predicting a Town win this afternoon, 40 per cent a draw and 23 per cent are predicting a home win. The most commonly predicted result is a 1-1 draw with Delap scoring first, but what do you think?
Leif Davis says he is expecting another intense meeting with Leicester City this weekend, the Blues having drawn each of the last three meetings with the Foxes.
Town defender Leif Davis has admitted he feels he let his teammates down following his sending off against Arsenal last month.
Scottish giants Rangers are reportedly interested in out-of-contract Blues central defender Cameron Burgess.
Call Me Ted’s final poster of the season by Blues sponsor and minority shareholder Ed Sheeran has been unveiled.
Town boss Kieran McKenna says the motivation when the Blues travel to face Leicester City at the King Power Stadium on Sunday is finishing above the Foxes in the Premier League table.
Blues midfielder Cameron Humphreys is gutted that his loan side Wycombe Wanderers were beaten 1-0 by Charlton Athletic in the League One play-off semi-final last night but says he will look back on the spell positively once the dust settled.
Town manager Kieran McKenna says Liam Delap fully deserves his nomination for the Premier League Young Player of the Year award and was pleased to that the Blues striker isn’t the only one he has coached on the shortlist.