So long Jordan Rhodes, the £400k-per-goal man no Sheffield Wednesday manager seemed to want

But Jordan Rhodes’ Sheffield Wednesday career ended as it had been for several years this week; with a shrug of the shoulders and a nagging feeling of what might have been.

It has been widely reported that the 31-year-old has undertaken a medical at Huddersfield Town and there will be few Wednesdayites that don’t wish him all the very best with his pursuit of the all-time Championship goalscoring record.

The fact is, though, that Rhodes’ four-year stint at S6 was an ordeal that in many ways mirrored the general decline of the club itself in that he was expensive, under-performing and eventually overtaken by the changing football world around him.

Brought in to the delight of supporters when the going was good, he never quite fitted in with Carlos Carvalhal’s side, crazy when you consider that club record fee. Jos Luhukay farmed him out on loan to Norwich and neither Garry Monk or Tony Pulis took much interest in him.

Some of his most confident football took place under Darren Moore and there were green shoots of a partnership there with Josh Windass, but it could be argued that in the end he flounced in and out of the relegation battle.

The argument that Wednesday had failed Rhodes by not building the team around him lost pace with every passing season and despite a number of ‘new dawns’, penned on pages such as these whenever he scored, it never happened.

Has football passed him by? We’ll find out in the coming months. Not many of his ilk still knock about in the higher echelons of football. If you take his reported transfer fee alone – without wages – his 20 Wednesday goals cost a shocking £400k apiece.

But it should be said that for all said, seven league goals in last season’s Wednesday side isn’t a bad tally. He seemed to put in the graft and, as an aside, he may well be the nicest bloke in football.

Jordan Rhodes leaves Sheffield Wednesday with a great deal of goodwill and a point to prove.

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