It's Round and It's White
Jordan Rhodes is one of the hottest properties in England nowadays as his illustrious goalscoring form proves, for both Huddersfield Town and Scotland under-21’s. The 21-year old has scored 22 goals this season – more than any other player in the whole of England, one better than Robin van Persie.
Streams of top clubs have been linked with the young Scot approaching the transfer window and surprisingly, Huddersfield Town manager, Lee Clark has welcomed the speculation.
Clark stated in an interview with Sky Sports recently that Rhodes’ game has improved as a whole since the speculation started. Rhodes has netted 21 league goals and has a record of a goal a game for both club and country, netting 28 times in 28 games since the 2011-12 season kicked off.
There have been small rumours that the likes of Liverpool and Manchester United are interested in League One’s top goalscorer. Reportedly, Rhodes has been scouted by Paul Scholes and Manchester United but the likeliness of this being truthful isn’t very high. The more mainstream speculation has come from the likes of Everton, QPR, Norwich City, Celtic and a formal bid has been received from West Ham United.
The transfer fee darted around is in the region of 4 million as the east London club, West Ham, had their 3 million pound bid rejected. Clark has claimed that everyone at Huddersfield knows that “come February 1st he will be our player.” There is no doubt that Clark will fight tooth and nail to keep his prized asset at the club and without Rhodes they would have to rely on Lee Novak who has netted 11 times and the likes of Danny Ward and Alan Lee.
When you attend a Huddersfield match it is plain to see Rhodes’ qualities are in abundance. He seems to light up the Galpharm Stadium every time he gets an opportunity and rightly so – he scores almost every single time. The natural scoring prowess that he possesses is frightful in the third tier of English football. In recent seasons we have seen the likes of Jermaine Beckford, Grant Holt, Steve Morison hitting the net on a regular basis in the top division of English football.
Rhodes mustn’t fall into the category of wanting away like Craig Mackail-Smith did in his time after Peterborough gained promotion last season, ironically enough against Huddersfield. The fellow Scottish striker was been touted following his League One scoring form and was snapped up by Brighton on a free transfer but has yet to capture their supporter’s imagination and hasn’t become another Jermaine Beckford at the top level.
For Rhodes it should be either Huddersfield or top flight, if he wants to become a great. There’s no use in the young Scottish striker wasting his talent by being distributed to numerous Championship clubs in his career when he can improve his game further at Huddersfield before inevitably moving onto a top club.
You can only look towards his team-mate, Anthony Pilkington who exchanged Huddersfield for Norwich and has established himself in the first team at the Premier League club. So much so that Pilkington has netted five times in sixteen league games.
His goalscoring form has left him only two goals behind the likes of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Mario Gomez in the top European leagues scoring charts.
You should bear in mind that all of those three players play for top European clubs and have a decorated background of international tournaments and the like. Rhodes is almost single-handedly carrying this Huddersfield Town side into the Championship despite a bad run of results for the Terriers as of late.
The equation is rather simple, Rhodes must either stay at Huddersfield or join a Premier League club to become an even better player than what he is right now.
