JORDAN Rhodes is focusing his efforts on proving his doubters wrong in the Barclays Premier League after shrugging off his latest Scotland snub. Once again there was no place in Gordon Strachan's squad for the prolific Middlesbrough striker, who with Steven Naismith relegated at Norwich and Steven Fletcher out-of-contract at Sunderland, could be the only recognised Scottish striker in the English top flight next season.
The 26-year-old, who cost a fee in the region of £9m when moving to the Riverside Stadium from Blackburn Rovers on January deadline day, has three goals in 13 appearances for Scotland to date, but hasn't featured since the 6-0 win against Gibraltar in Faro last March. The Oldham-born player, who qualifies under the schooling rule, was overlooked in favour of Tony Watt, his erstwhile replacement at Blackburn, for the friendlies against the Czech Republic and Denmark in March.
Rhodes scored six crucial goals since February for Aitor Karanka's side, who clinched promotion in a breathless decider against Brighton last weekend. He says he will be "fulfilling a boyhood dream" when he walks onto a Premier League football pitch for the first time and plans to give that his undivided attention.
"I will just keep trying to do my best and work as hard as I can, for whoever tells me to, until I am told otherwise," Rhodes told Herald Sport. "I will work as hard as I can whenever I am given time on the pitch and if I can chip in with a goal or two I will be fulfilling a boyhood dream.
"It probably doesn't get much better than scoring in the Premier League, although scoring for your country probably is very much on a par, something I have managed to do three times," he added. "But it would be nice to get one or two so I can have that in my memory till the day I die.
"I'm getting married in about a month's time," he added. "I've got a honeymoon booked, I've got the Premier League to look forward to and I've just moved into a new house. So life at the moment is pretty good."
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