Jordan Rhodes scores goals. He scored them for both Rovers and Huddersfield, but things have gone a little quiet since.

He wasn’t in the Sheffield Wednesday matchday squad for the game at Ewood Park at the weekend, instead turning out for their Under-23s side against Burnley on Monday, doing what he does best, scoring 36 minutes in to a 1-1 draw.

Rhodes is a record signing at both Rovers and Wednesday, while the £8m Huddersfield received for his services was, until this summer, highest transfer fee they had ever received.

He is eighth on Huddersfield’s all-time record goalscorers list, with 87, and holds the record for the most goals scored in a single season, netting 36 times in their promotion season from League One.

In 169 appearances for Rovers, between August 2012 and January 2016, he scored 85 times, with 87 for the Terriers in 148 games from July 2009 until his Rovers move three years later.

That makes it even more surprising that he finds himself out of favour at Hillsborough, spending last season with second-tier champions Norwich City.

Since leaving east Lancashire, he has started 45 Championship matches, 57 more as a substitute, with 12 in the domestic cup competitions, scoring 25 times.

Monk has stressed that ‘top pro’ Rhodes would get more opportunities, despite missing out for a fifth consecutive matchday squad.

But what has gone wrong for the striker, still only 29, and for who two clubs have broken their transfer records to sign?

At Middlesbrough, they managed what Rovers hadn’t, by securing promotion back to the top flight, in 2016, but despite forking out £9m on his services, he managed just 208 minutes of Premier League football across six appearances – only two of which were starts – before the move to Wednesday in January 2017, one that would become permanent that summer.

That brought to an end any possibility of Rhodes rediscovering his prolific partnership with Rudy Gestede who trod the same path from Rovers to Middlesbrough in January 2017.

Rhodes managed six goals in Middlesbrough colours, and while far from prolific, there were some important ones along the way. A last-minute equaliser at MK Dons in his second appearance promised much, while a brace, including an 89th-minute winner at Bolton, kept up their promotion push.

One thing Rhodes has never lacked is popularity with his club’s supporters, and despite his short time on Teesside, fans wanted to see more of him in action than they did.

That often came down to the style of then boss Aitor Karanka, a stickler for one up front, who ignored calls to play Rhodes in a central striking two, opting to bring in Alvaro Negredo to be the lone frontman in the Premier League campaign of 2016/17.

Rhodes arrived at a time when Boro were crying out for goals, water-tight at the back, but needing more at the other end. But he departed just a year later with many wondering just why he had been brought in, given his obvious strengths not matching up with the manager’s philosophy.

There remains a feeling of ‘what if’ on Teesside. Could Rhodes have thrived in the Premier League in a different system? Could he have added some much needed firepower with a regular run in the side?

Wednesday sensed the chance to bring in a proven Championship goalscorer, to push their own promotion bid over the line, in January 2017 when they signed Rhodes on loan, with an obligation to buy for £10m.

Things started well again, Rhodes netting within nine minutes of his home debut in a 3-0 win and twice more in a 5-1 thumping of Norwich. But after five starts without a goal, Rhodes drifted on to the bench, even despite the preference of then boss Carlos Carvalhal to go with two strikers.

Wednesday did reach the play-offs that season, Rhodes coming off the bench in both legs against former club Huddersfield, but interestingly, didn’t take a penalty in the second leg shoot-out that saw the Owls knocked out.

Five goals in 31 games followed in 2017/18 before spending last season with Norwich, very much as back-up to Teemu Pukki, with 27 of his 36 Championship appearances coming as a substitute, chipping in with six goals.

So now, Rhodes remains on the periphery at Hillsborough.

For Monk to be talking about why a player with Rhodes’ pedigree, history and goalscoring knack, at the age of 29, is failing to even make the substitutes bench shows where his career is at right now.

The question is more now whether he will make the matchday 18, rather than starting XI.

There are few transfer deals that would please many Rovers fans more than Rhodes being unveiled, as shown by the reaction to his goal against Burnley, even in an Under-23s fixture.

However, his current wage packet would restrict any possible likelihood of them, or indeed many Championship clubs, being able to prise him away from Hillsborough without significant negotiation.