Think with rodders people need to understand that strikers all give the ball away. I thought he looked a threat on Saturday, we countered well with him - and yes some moves broke down because he gave the ball away - but the way we play, where the plan is to move the ball forward quickly and centrally, that’s going to happen. Everything happens at pace in tight spaces and the margins are small. But when it works it’s hard to stop.
Rod is guilty of trying too much and sometimes at the wrong time and wrong place. I think as fans when we watch him play, we remember things like the stupid pass against Arsenal and so notice every mistake. Meanwhile our Duracell bunny aaronson does the same thing without reproach.
I’ve often thought he was a good player without an obvious position - but to be fair when given a run as striker… end of first season in the Prem, start of this. He has actually delivered. It’s true that his hold up play and link up play, runs in behind, press leading etc probably aren’t generally as good as paddy’s ( when paddy is on it) - though he does hit some great passes and is capable of nice interplay.
And that’s the classic dilemma. Striker who scores v 1 that helps move the team up the pitch so you get chances to score.
At the moment you have to take rod over paddy as your first choice.
and when I looked at his International record and thought wow that’s pretty good, when you compare him to another Spain striker David Villa you get masses of goals and a 60% strike rate and Norways Haaland has a 91% rate FFS
