Jordan Rhodes states it was always on his agenda to rejoin Blackpool on a permanent deal following a successful loan spell at Bloomfield Road.
Despite spending the majority of the second season on the sidelines through injury, the striker had already done enough to impress the Seasiders faithful, finishing the campaign with 15 goals in 29 League One outings.
Rhodes will rejoin Blackpool this summer as a free agent following the conclusion of his contract with Huddersfield Town, and admits everything just aligned for him on the Fylde Coast.
Despite spending the majority of the second season on the sidelines through injury, the striker had already done enough to impress the Seasiders faithful, finishing the campaign with 15 goals in 29 League One outings.
Rhodes will rejoin Blackpool this summer as a free agent following the conclusion of his contract with Huddersfield Town, and admits everything just aligned for him on the Fylde Coast.
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SportsTranscript
00:00Why do you think it clicked the way it did, and so soon, between you and the club?
00:17Good question. Good question. I don't really know the answer to that. Sometimes these things
00:25just happen. Again, on the flip side of that plane, as I said before, sometimes you find
00:32yourself in environments where it just doesn't click. For one, or Will, or whatever, it just
00:38doesn't happen. And you see that up and down the country with all sorts of players. So
00:44no, I think you've got to be thankful for that initial start. I went into the experience
00:54with just open arms, just willing to try and take on as much as I could and be positive,
01:02be good around the place. There was just an energy going on around the place, and I was
01:09just more than happy to comply and do the best that I could with whatever was thrown at me.
01:17I guess the environment, and that comes down from the manager, the chairman, David Downs,
01:23sometimes environments don't necessarily always entice sort of driving behaviour. But every day
01:30is a working day, certainly under the manager, and I really enjoyed that.
01:36How soon did thoughts about your future creep into your thinking? When did you think,
01:41well, I'd like to stay here next year or come back?
01:47Maybe towards the end of the season when questions were starting to get asked.
01:53I think, again, when you get to this age and then things kind of off the field with my wife,
02:01with my kids, it's almost step by step. And as long as it lends, this football career obviously
02:11doesn't last forever. And you have to be very thankful that you find yourself in a great
02:17environment and you enjoy these latter years while you still get to call yourself a professional
02:25footballer. But yeah, especially if it kind of lends itself to family life and the kids are
02:32happy and my wife's happy and I can go to work knowing that family life and home life is very
02:38consistent, then that feels like that kind of promotes and improves professional, not professional
02:46behaviour, but professional performance almost. You feel like you can really apply yourself and
02:51that was apparent last year. And yeah, I said before, long may that continue.
02:58Yeah, I'll try my very best to apply myself to Blackpool Football Club this year.
03:06And when I'm at home, I'll try and be a good husband and a good dad. And then, yeah, it's just
03:11a matter of when I find myself in the environments that I'm in, when it's football, it's time to go
03:16to work. And when I'm home, let's put my phone to one side and do the best that I can at home life.
03:22Well, on social media, there's always rumours flying around, they were linking you with
03:27different clubs in the last month. Was there any approaches from anywhere else that
03:33sort of caught the eye or was it always full focus on Blackpool?
03:37Do you know what? I'm not on any social media. So the things that you could possibly say to me
03:42now would be news to me and I've never heard before. No, there wasn't. And there wasn't
03:49really an appetite. We knew kind of what towards the end of the last season that there might be
03:56something that might be in the offing at Blackpool for next year. So until those talks
04:04happened, which successfully, which luckily they did. But if they happen to be unsuccessful,
04:10then it was very much let's speak to Blackpool first and see what can be done and see what
04:17possibilities might arise. So it was just very much courtesy of Blackpool. Loyalties were very
04:24much in Blackpool side. And if talks happened to break down, then perhaps it was to look elsewhere,
04:31see what the possibilities might arise. But no, there wasn't any sort of fishing around for anyone
04:37else. That's not the way we work. Of course, you've had successful periods at Huddersfield.
04:43Was your future there pretty much sewn up? Did you know what the future held there quite early on?
04:50Well, to be honest with you, as soon as I left there last year to come on loan to Blackpool,
04:57that first came away at Lincoln. In my mind, that was just my time at Huddersfield was done.
05:03And I know it's, you know, I was on loan and I was still technically Huddersfield's player and
05:09all that sort of stuff. But I knew my contract was running down there as well. And Blackpool
05:16pretty much had taken over that last sort of nine, ten months of my contract there. So it was just
05:23very much in my mind. It was just, yeah, I'm here at Blackpool for the rest of the season on loan.
05:29Let's see what we can do. Let's try our best and hopefully we can get in the playoffs. And
05:33it was just all focus and eyes on the Blackpool road for the season ahead.