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Never liked Rhodes, even when he scored for Hudders and Blackburn, he lacks pace, height, strength and since signing for us he can't finish either. Unless Bruce has a plan to keep him in and around the box and give him incredible service from both wings then its a big 'I'm over him' from me. 

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1 minute ago, dumboldowl said:

 

I agree with most of that, except that we forgot to ditch the above mentioned approach during the Luton game, and as a consequence had to endure ninety odd minutes of absolute dross, with the same inevitable result that haunted us for the last two years.

 

Change of goalie facilitated this. Westwood goes direct most of time whilst Dawson nearly always goes short. Not dissing on Dawson but its a hangover of his Jos time. 

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2 minutes ago, GerOwl said:

 

Change of goalie facilitated this. Westwood goes direct most of time whilst Dawson nearly always goes short. Not dissing on Dawson but its a hangover of his Jos time. 

 

When we are in possession in the middle third of the pitch' and the ball is passed backwards and forwards ad nauseum until we inevitably lose it, surely has nothing to do with the goalkeeper or how it arrived there in the first place.

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1 hour ago, areNOTwhatTHEYseem said:

I don't think Rhodes has particularly lost his touch: he's probably operating at a similar level to what he always has, but the game has changed around him and strikers of his ilk are no longer regular starters for many teams at this level.

 

At his 'peak', in four seasons playing in the Championship for Blackburn, he averaged a goal every 164 minutes, which isn't totally out of sync with his goal every 194 minutes for Middlesbrough or his current rate of a goal every 181 minutes for Norwich. In fact, since establishing himself as a senior pro, the only Championship team he's struggled to score for at a decent rate has been Wednesday, where he's averaged a goal every 360 minutes so far.

 

The problem Wednesday have is that when Rhodes was scoring goals every other week, he tended to be played as part of a front two with traditional wingers getting regular crosses into the box: a style of football which is now out of fashion in the top two divisions of English football, meaning that we'll struggle to find many takers willing to pay anything like what we did for his services.

 

Norwich have taken him on loan this season, but their outlay is nothing like what we spent on him, and of course they're mostly using him as a substitute, since Pukki seems far better suited to playing the lone striker in a 4-2-3-1. Rhodes is making a valuable contribution to their season and is being used pretty effectively by their manager, but I can't imagine in a million years that they'd be willing to splash the kind of cash we did to secure a striker who'll start most games on the bench.

 

And that pretty much sums up Wednesday's conundrum: we've invested heavily in a striker who we don't get the best out of, but neither would the vast majority of clubs who could afford his services. We either need to alter our entire approach in order to try and get the best out of him on a regular basis; accept that we spent a ridiculous amount on a substitute - a potentially effective substitute, yes - but a substitute nonetheless; or we need to cut our losses and try to find a club who'll take him off our hands, whilst probably writing off a decent wedge of cash in the process.

 

All in all, it's a bloody mess!

 

:duntmatter:

This for me sums up the conundrum perfectly

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We can’t change our whole style of play just to try and make one stupid transfer not seem so bad. We have to choose the best style of play to suit our manager, the squad that he has and who we can get in to complement it. If that doesn’t suit Rhodes then we’ve just got to make the best of a bad job and recoup what we can for him.

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19 minutes ago, Mardy Bum said:

Personally he's not what we need right now. We need pace, get him off the wage bill and see who's available. 

 

This is often a misconception for me. The old FIFA mentality where the quickest striker wins.

 

We've got pace in Joao (when he turns up) but what we also need is someone with strength, hold up play and who isn't afraid to put it in row z.

 

I'd take a striker who is slower than Joao but knows where the onion bag is and isn't afraid of a scrap.  Winnall potentially has the attributes.

 

Rhodes has missed sitters akin the the ones Nuhiu has in his time with us.

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31 minutes ago, Sonny said:

We can’t change our whole style of play just to try and make one stupid transfer not seem so bad. We have to choose the best style of play to suit our manager, the squad that he has and who we can get in to complement it. If that doesn’t suit Rhodes then we’ve just got to make the best of a bad job and recoup what we can for him.

 

Indeed. When laying out my solutions to our 'conundrum' above, the option of building a team around Rhodes was supposed to seem implicitly bonkers. As, I hope, does keeping him as an expensive substitute.

 

I suspect our only viable option is to move him on and try to mitigate our losses. As Norwich are showing this season, that will most likely be to someone else's benefit, but we're just going to have to suck it up I'm afraid.

 

One thing's for certain, though: only Wednesday could languish 16th in the league whilst our record signing is out on loan and scoring at a decent rate at a club chasing automatic promotion!

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Despite what Mr C says about our recruitment team, there was an unnecessary change of emphasis following Wembley. It began a, largely, foolhardy period of recruitment that culminated in what was, perhaps the club’s biggest transfer mistake of all time, Jordan Rhodes. Were they working from a 2012 yearbook? I could quite easily pass on all of the signings made during this period, except for maybe, Reach

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17 minutes ago, areNOTwhatTHEYseem said:

 

Indeed. When laying out my solutions to our 'conundrum' above, the option of building a team around Rhodes was supposed to seem implicitly bonkers. As, I hope, does keeping him as an expensive substitute.

 

I suspect our only viable option is to move him on and try to mitigate our losses. As Norwich are showing this season, that will most likely be to someone else's benefit, but we're just going to have to suck it up I'm afraid.

 

One thing's for certain, though: only Wednesday could languish 16th in the league whilst our record signing is out on loan and scoring at a decent rate at a club chasing automatic promotion!

 

Yeah totally, you were right to list it as an option. We could do it but even if we did I’m not convinced he’s really up to it. 

 

We’ve just got to recoup what we can and let the expense work it’s way out of FFP. Maybe if DC learns a massive lesson then we can add that as a positive too.

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I think a lot depends on Norwich.

 

If they go up he'll be back if they don't I believe they will try and sign him. I say try because a lot depends on finance, what they have, what we want and what Rhodes wage will be. They seem to love him down there, he rarely starts but clearly offers something from the bench as there fans have taken to him.

 

I believe we will owe Boro 4 million at the end of this season. Which if we sell needs paying in full so id imagine if we can get anything near that amount which we wont we'll sell or look to loan him out again.

 

In my opinion we should go back in for Wickham. Would be the perfect type of striker for us. As we are top heavy in that area, Fletcher Rhodes Hooper (unfortunately) and Nuhiu can all leave for me. Wickham Fessi Matias Joao and Winnall - With the inclusion of Borakov if we need a physical presence if he continues to progress would be a good set of options.

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