Sheffield Wednesday poised to hold talks with Norwich City over Jordan Rhodes’ future
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The 29-year-old, a club-record £8m capture from Middlesbrough in February 2017, is currently on loan with the Canaries until the end of the campaign.
Although Norwich are flying high at the top of the table and on the verge of securing promotion to the Premier League, things have not gone according to plan for Rhodes. He has largely played second fiddle to Teemu Pukki, who has plundered 27 goals in his first year in English football.
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Hide AdDespite just making 11 starts in all competitions for the Canaries, Rhodes has found the back of the net on nine occasions.
Boss Steve Bruce, whose Owls team face Norwich at Carrow Road tomorrow, told The Star: "It probably hasn’t gone well, in terms of time on the pitch for Jordan.
"The minutes he has played has obviously been limited since they had a bit of a shuffle, playing one up top and one off.
"He hasn’t probably played as much as he would have liked.
"But when you have somebody who scores 27 goals, and the system Norwich play, it’s limited Jordan to not enough time on the pitch.
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Hide Ad"But we will have a conversation with Norwich over the next week or so, two weeks, and see where the situation lies."
It remains to be seen where Rhodes, whose uncle is Wednesday assistant manager Steve Agnew, will be playing his football next year. He is due to return to Hillsborough this summer, but Bruce has already made it abundantly clear he intends to trim his forward line.
"We have six strikers, if Jordan comes back in the summer we have seven. That’s not healthy," he said.
"We have to make big decisions, which we will talk about next week, and I am sure Jordan’s situation will be brought into the equation as well.
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Hide Ad"We will have to be led by Norwich to see what they have up their sleeve but I haven’t asked about the deal and what it entails. We’ll ask those questions next week."
It is well-documented that Bruce is a big fan of Rhodes' qualities. He has tried to sign the Scotland international at two of his former clubs, Hull City and Aston Villa.
Bruce said: "He is somebody who I have always liked as a player. You look at his goalscoring record, it’s second to none.
"If he comes back, then good, let’s see what we do. But I haven’t given it any real thought process just yet and I (won’t do) that really until probably after this weekend.
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Hide Ad"I can’t see any reason why (he can't get back to his best). He’s a decent age. I can’t see any reason why not."
Rhodes is ineligible to play against his parent club.
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