Rodriguez will come good. He is one for the future. Lets be honest he hasn't exactly been given a fair run of games to tell if he is developing. Lambert has maybe 2 seasons left before an inevitable decline. JRod does need to perhaps show he is better than lambert, but it's gonna be a braver man than me to drop lambert for anyone, regardless of his form.
Time will tell of course. But his baggage isn`t all bad - he was a good manager for Rangers, Motherwell, Hibs and Scotland, won a trophy for Brum, and Villa were something of a poisoned chalice. Even our Nigel has been relegated after all. He has learned from years of playing (and being very successful) under Fergie at Aberdeen - I wouldn`t write him off just yet.
Seems nonsensical to some to play our £7m striking prodigy on the wing, but when the time comes for Lambert to step aside, we'll be grateful we did for a central striker of a good age who knows inside out the way we like to play. How many fantastic strikers have played wide before ousting the incumbent? Henry for one and there are many others. Rodriguez's all-round game is better than Sharp's and I think if we keep him sharp, he'll be ready to slip into any of the front 3 roles. Billy Sharp I think would struggle out wide without the pace, skill or team-play to really make it work. Without working someone like Rodriguez in, it would take a £20-30m striker to simply walk into the team and replace Lambert as if nothing had happened. We don't have that sort of money and if we did, we wouldn't attract the calibre of player. It's the hard way for us unfortunately.
It's obvious to me why we bought JRod, he is a calculated investment for the future (check my sig!)...as Matt rightly says, to replace Rickie would've cost a fortune, so in effect we have an understudy who has the potential to be very good and the club has a culture of making good players better. Just look at how much Sunderland paid for Connor Wickham, the £7m we paid for is not really a lot for a young England U21 striker, better we buy him now on manageable wages than later for £10m+, it's called 'speculating to accumulate' and NC is a very shrewd businessman. Fans shouldn't be too quick to judge JRod until he has had an extended run in the team, he is still learning and he couldn't learn from anyone better than Rickie in my opinion.
