The most misused man in the Championship

Whilst vying for the title outlined in the article heading you wouldn't expect a man who has contributed 11 goals at an average of a goal in less than every two games to feature as a front runner, but that's very much the case in one of the stranger cases in footballing malpractice.

Jordan Rhodes has been a fairly sizeable hit at Blackburn Rovers since his protracted summer transfer ended in an £8m switch from Huddersfield to East Lancashire, but that has been largely as a result of the boy's own talent than that of his use in a struggling Rovers side.

Infact it could, and given the right set of circumstances, should have been even better for the Oldham born Scottish international.

Because as any Blackburn Rovers fan would be able to tell you, the man who "scores when he wants" has been living off scraps all season long. Actually off scraps is being kind, t'old Jo-Rho has been living off service tantamount to giving a starving man a bone and being told to gnaw off the skin.

The Rovers have been playing a system this term that has meant Rhodes has been playing as a lone frontman, which as more than one conversation with a Huddersfield Town fan has told me is absolutely scandalous use of the man's talents - the formation and tactics which allowed the natural finisher to thrive in West Yorkshire were far different to the ones being implemented at his new club.

Part of the problem is that our squad is devoid of a player that can play regularly as a foil for Rhodes. The two that can - Nuno Gomes and Leon Best - are not in a position to do that job regularly... one is fairly ancient in striker parlance and can't play every given Saturday and Wednesday, the other is still crocked and won't be available until Valentines Day at the earliest.

Other concoctions of "partners" such as Ruben Rochina, Mauro Formica, on loan Josh King and David Dunn are all various degrees of attacking midfielders and second strikers (Championship Manager vocabulary coming out here) and not true front men in the strictest sense of the term. Even Kazim-Richards is more of a winger and performs a similar role to Rhodes when asked to play at the business end of the field.

For all the summer purchases and talk of building a large, robust squad it is perhaps a testament to the lack of a proper spending plan and amassing players without a clear strategy (buying 1,325 potentially random Portuguese players and not bothering to purchase an actual first team ready defender is a shining example of this) by Shebby Singh/Venky's that our best player is often spending 90 minutes every matchday plowing a lone furrow - devoid of any help and starved of a proper supply line.

As a side note we don't even seem to be that bothered about crossing to the poor guy, Jordan is a very strong aerial player and scores his fair share of headed goals. Yet those with the ability to send in a regular stream of crosses such as young Fabio Nunes and Simon Vukcevic have remained on the sidelines under first Kean and then Berg, in favour of more "solid" types such as the less talented Olsson and Mauro "Argentine John Bishop" Formica.

Rhodes has produced a lot, perhaps more so than any other striker in the second tier could with such limited supply, but instead of building the side around such a natural outlet of goals the management seem more keen on getting him to be part of something, as opposed to getting him to BE the something that wins us games.

Jordan Rhodes is an excellent talent, dare I say he's a goalscorer worth £8m and he's looked a bonafide class act when he's had every right not to. But the time has come to cut him loose at a time when we're screaming out for inspiration.

Our boy is a rare talent, perhaps one of the best in the country, but you'd be hard pressed to tell in his current guise.