Pundit Paul Robinson has slammed Rodrigo for his below-par performances this season for Leeds United.
Rodrigo, rated at £13.5m, has featured regularly for Leeds United this season, making 23 Premier League appearances whilst scoring five goals and registering one assist. He is two goals away from matching his tally from the last campaign with eight games to go.
Leeds have struggled this term and find themselves well amongst a relegation battle as they sit just two places above the bottom three. Rodrigo has featured more regularly for his side than last season, as he made just 14 starts in the Premier League, but has already started 20 times this term.
Rodrigo may have been given more minutes for his side this campaign, but Robinson, speaking to MOT Leeds News, said that his performances should be better.
“Rodrigo’s been given a run and an opportunity in the team. He’s certainly done better than he has done previously, I just still don’t think the performances are at the level they should be at,”
“They were seconds away from drawing against Norwich, which would’ve felt like a defeat and with Wolves, okay, the result was excellent, but I still don’t think the performance was good enough.
“At the end of the day, they only beat 10 men.
“It was an outstanding achievement to overcome a two-goal deficit but I think two results have masked two poor performances.
“I don’t see that big of a change.
“Rodrigo’s improved because he’s been given an opportunity and he’s obviously been given a new lease of life under the new manager.
“He’s had an opportunity to play and you can see he’s got a lot more confidence.”
TIF Thoughts on Paul Robinson’s comments…
Rodrigo has stepped up his game recently, and he has two goals in his last two Premier League games, but still has an average match rating of below 7 in the Premier League, according to SofaScore. He has an average of 0.7 shots on target per game and has a successful dribble rate of under 50% this season.
The Spanish attacker signed for Leeds from Valencia in August 2020 but has arguably failed to live up to his £26m price tag since moving to England. He has 13 goals in 66 Premier League appearances for the Yorkshire club, whilst having a shot accuracy of just 36%.
The stats from Rodrigo somewhat back up Robinson’s claims as he signed for a big sum of money, but has not supplied the goods. However, this season, Leeds have had several injuries to key players, and he has recently turned his form around under new manager Jesse Marsch, so he could yet live up to his price tag in the future under the American coach.