It’s what you pay the money for

Ever since Jordan Rhodes became a Blackburn Rovers player the main focus from the outside world has been on the money paid for his services rather than the skills he brings to the table.

With it being the highest fee ever paid for an incoming player outside of the top division I guess that is only natural but he is slowly becoming worth every penny.

The ultimate acid will only arrive come May, if we’re promoted to the big time then £8m will seem like nothing, a drop in the ocean almost. But fail in our quest to bounce back up at the first time of asking and he could be seen as an expensive experiment.

His role appears to be different to that he enjoyed at Huddersfield Town, his former club, there he was simply a goal machine – with one task and that was to get in position to score. Others did the dirty work for him, he was there to round of the stastical section of attcaking play.

At Rovers he is charged with a more all round game. Holding the play up for others and running the channels seems to have become part of his daily assignments and it is debatable whether Rovers play a formation that truly suits him and his best talent which is hitting the parts of the pitch to score goals.

But he IS adapting, the better players always do and although he is not scoring with quite the same freedom as he enjoyed in West Yorkshire (being a division higher than last season’s wonder haul probably doesn’t help) but he is starting to get in the groove and in the space of a week has earned us a cumulative 3 points on the back of his own goalscoring efforts.

The boy is living off scraps at times as Rovers more defensive approach means he doesn’t get a steady level of service and the often wayward passing on display from his colleagues must be frustrating.

But as his last minute heroics against Watford proves is he doesn’t need much of an invitation to score. One chance, one goal – and there aren’t many in the division at present who could pull that off.