da bet7k： Leeds United had a brilliant summer transfer window by all accounts.
da bet vitoria： They spent nearly £100m on new talent and the marquee addition was undoubtedly the club-record signing of Rodrigo from Valencia.
The Whites splashed out £27m on the Spain international this summer, but it seems as though he may not be utilised in the best way going forward.
Indeed, Marcelo Bielsa alluded to the fact that he sees him as more of an attacking midfielder than a striker in his pre-match press conference ahead of the Aston Villa game, saying:
“Just to make a reference, for example, we have Bamford and Roberts up front, Rodrigo and Pablo in attacking midfield. Poveda and Costa, Raphinha and Harrison [on the wings].”
Rodrigo is certainly capable of playing as an attacking midfielder, after all, he has played there twice already this season, but prior to joining Leeds, that is a role he had never actually played in.
The saying goes that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and Rodrigo is a man with well over 350 senior appearances to his name with at least 200 of those coming as a centre-forward.
Asking your club-record signing to play out of position in order to accommodate Patrick Bamford and Tyler Roberts makes very little sense, and Darren Bent’s opinion on the matter perfectly shows why it may not be the best idea.
“It might be difficult but sometimes you’ve got to understand the situation of the team. At times it can be frustrating,” Bent said.
“I always wanted to play centre-forward but early on in my career, I was asked to play wide at times or positions I wasn’t comfortable in.”
Bent is right and Rodrigo could quickly get frustrated by being shackled to a position that he isn’t familiar with. When you add into that the fact that there’s an argument to make that Pablo Hernandez is actually the better option in attacking midfield, it looks as though Victor Orta’s hard work to get Rodrigo in at Elland Road is in danger of being wasted.
Indeed, Hernandez has a lot more experience playing in that role and he’s a lot more suited to playing under Bielsa, winning the club’s Player of the Year award in each of the last three seasons.
Fingers crossed the Argentine starts to use Rodrigo as a striker in the near future as that’s the position he’s played for the majority of his career.