Sheffield Wednesday questioned for 'huge' Jordan Rhodes 'mistake' - 'it was almost kind of sad' | OneFootball

FLW's Sheffield Wednesday fan pundit has been reminiscing on Jordan Rhodes' big-money Owls move in 2017.

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

There was once a time around a decade ago that Sheffield Wednesday were on the cusp of achieving Premier League promotion.

Indeed, in the immediate couple of years that followed Dejphon Chansiri's £37.5m takeover of the club in 2015, the Owls soon began to soar around the top of the Championship.

The Thai businessman had earmarked 2017 as being the year in which he wanted to see the club back in the Premier League, as it would coincide with the 150th-year anniversary of Sheffield Wednesday.

"We want to be back for our anniversary. We will do whatever is appropriate to invest in the club to get them to the Premier League," Chansiri said.

Come deadline day of the 2017 winter transfer window, Sheffield Wednesday were in a position in which they felt now was the time to really push for a play-off spot over the final months of the 2016/17 season.

The Owls had finished sixth the season prior, and whilst riding the wave of genuine on-field progression in Chansiri's first two years in charge and looking to meet his aforementioned 2017 Premier League target, a deal was struck for Rhodes.

Initially signing on loan until the end of the season from Middlesbrough, Sheffield Wednesday had agreed to purchase the centre-forward on a permanent basis in the summer for a fee of £10m.

It was a move that brought to an end a frustrating spell as a Boro player, having signed for the Teessiders in the winter of 2016 for a fee of £9m.

However, he was never truly favoured by Aitor Karanka at the Riverside Stadium, and despite netting six goals and providing two assists in just 18 Championship appearances over the course of the second half of the 2015/16 season, goal contributions that proved vital to helping his team win automatic promotion to the Premier League, he just couldn't impress himself enough on the Boro boss.

The summer of 2016 saw Middlesbrough bring in renowned striker Alvaro Negredo on loan from Valencia, and with significant fees splashed out on fellow centre-forwards Rudy Gestede and Patrick Bamford in that season's winter window, Rhodes was allowed to seek an escape route out of the North East.

So, given his goalscoring pedigree at Championship level with Blackburn Rovers (82 goals in 159 appearances), he certainly had the CV that suggested he could be the man to fire Wednesday to Premier League promotion.

Had he done so, then the £10m mandatory fee would've been a drop in the ocean considering the riches that come with playing in the top-flight, but that wasn't to be the case for the Owls.

However, just three goals in 18 regular season appearances wasn't quite the return anyone was after, despite the fact that Carlos Carvalhal was still able to guide the team to a fourth-placed finish in the second tier that year.

The Owls were beaten by Huddersfield Town in the play-off semi-finals, and since then, the club has never been as close to reclaiming their place in the Premier League.

Rhodes would score just five goals in 31 league outings for Wednesday the following season, before spending the 2018/19 season on loan with Norwich City.

Upon his return in 2019, the Scotsman would remain at Hillsborough until the summer of 2021, scoring three times in 16 Championship games in the 2019/20 season, before marking his final Owls campaign with a seven-goal tally from 36 league appearances, as the club were relegated to League One at the conclusion of the 2020/21 season.

Rhodes would end up re-signing for Huddersfield Town after his release from Sheffield Wednesday.

We asked our Sheffield Wednesday fan pundit, Patrick McKenna: 'Do you look back on the deal to sign Jordan Rhodes as a big mistake?'

Patrick said: "The decision to sign Jordan Rhodes for Sheffield Wednesday was a huge mistake, and in some ways, it's symbolic of the Chansiri era.

"There was no logical sense to bringing him in at the time. We had plenty of strikers at the club already, and it was just an overload in that position.

"It wasn't what we needed transfer-wise, but strategy-wise too, especially since we had just signed Sam Winnall. The fee as well; at that stage in his career, Jordan Rhodes was fading as such.

"The peak in his career was a few years previous in League One with Huddersfield Town and in the Championship with Blackburn Rovers.

"But yes, Rhodes never got going, and indeed, he lost a lot of goodwill with the fans when he bottled out of taking a penalty against Huddersfield in the play-off semi-final.

"It wasn't if he wasn't given chances at Wednesday; apart from that one game against Nottingham Forest where he got a hat-trick, he was just ineffective.

"He never got into a goalscoring streak, and by the end, it was almost kind of sad seeing him lumbering about. His transfer just has to go down as a failure.