Leeds’ player of the season: Rodrigo – 13 goals and he’s looked up for a scrap - The Athletic 26/5/23

Phil Hay

What better way to sum up last season than to say that, at the end of it, Leeds United shelved their player-of-the-year awards completely. No-time-for-distractions was the official explanation, but as an irate crowd became more volatile and relegation loomed, it was convenient not to poke the bear further by handing out superficial prizes.

It remains to be seen whether the appetite is there for a return to the routine of end-of-term accolades this year, given 2022-23 has been 2021-22 revisited and the issue with fraught campaigns is that, by definition, stand-out performers tend to be limited.

There are times when, in spite of the general malaise, Ross McCormack scores 29 goals and stays clear of incoming fire. But there are others where player of the year goes to an Eddie Lewis, simply because he’s the last man people want to run out of town.

Slim pickings, then, and in the discussion about who deserves the trophy as Leeds face up to going down, very few hills to die on other than Rodrigo Ridge.

There is irony in the fact his best year for the club has coincided with their worst since they signed him but that almost adds to the mystery of what the thinking was with his transfer.

Even now, at the end of his third season at Elland Road, he cannot make himself stick up front. Thirteen goals from 22 Premier League starts and still he has been wide in a three, never allowed to play through the middle religiously. But this is as close as he has looked to a £27million forward — the amount of money Leeds threw at Valencia to get him in August 2020.

A few others in the squad have fought the good fight too, though not to the same extent.

Robin Koch has been competent to a degree that if Leeds do go down, he would not find a good move difficult to come by but equally, he is a fixture in a defence which has tried its best to earn charitable status over the past 10 months. Wilfried Gnonto was precocious and electric, but limited minutes latterly have only served to make him fade. Jack Harrison is on seven assists but has blown hot and cold, not helped by Leeds dangling him in the January transfer market. And Tyler Adams will have missed a third of their season when it ends on Sunday.

The noticeable thing about Rodrigo this season is that he has looked game for the scrap. His attitude and body language have been more feisty and, as much as it is possible to do this when results are imploding around him, he has looked like a forward who is ‘having himself’, a forward who expects to score. He is joint 11th on the Premier League’s goalscorer list and the best gauge of the credibility of that ranking is to look at the names above him for that stat.

Nobody else at Leeds has been on a streak. Nobody else at Leeds has looked as on-it. That might be damning Rodrigo with faint praise but to cut to the chase, take him out of the equation and the club would already be long gone back to the Championship. It is not as if their defence is keeping them up.

From any perspective, Rodrigo’s numbers look good.

Those 13 league goals have come from 22 starts plus eight more appearances as a substitute. He has exceeded his current expected goals figure of 7.98, and is one of the few who has gone well beyond xG. He has converted two-thirds of his 12 big chances (as opposed to fellow Leeds front man Patrick Bamford, who has missed 13 of 15). He is not far off a successful finish from every two shots on target (27) and all in all, it begs the question of whether more could have been made of him over the past three years.

What if Rodrigo had been made to fit in a position which worked for him or suited him? Was he the right player at the wrong time, the right player used badly, or just the wrong signing altogether?

He has a year left on his contract and while Leeds were minded to discuss a 12-month extension, it seems implausible that one of their higher earners will still be here if Sunday’s events require planning for a year down in the EFL.

So Rodrigo might be in the final throes of his career at Elland Road and if this is it for him, it is hard to imagine that he will depart feeling fulfilled or thinking his transfer to England hit the bullseye. But this season does allow him to say that he proved he could do it in the Premier League, defining him in a slightly different way.

At the risk of making it sound like Rodrigo emerging from his shell was the real quiz, at least he has that.