The son of an English mother and a Spanish father, who had played semi-professionally – including once for Burnley’s Reserves – Jay Rodriguez came through the ranks at his home-town club. Having come on as a substitute at St Mary’s, in Burnley’s penultimate match of the 2008-09 season – the 2-2 draw that propelled the Clarets towards the Championship play-offs and the Saints in the direction of League One – Jay was likewise deployed in the three knock-out games by which Burnley progressed to the Premiership. An ankle-injury incurred in a Reserves’ match hampered his progress in 2009-10, with the result that he went on loan to Barnsley, while Burnley’s Premier League interlude totally passed him by.

Back in the Championship for the next two seasons, he flourished, seldom missing a game and top-scoring both in 2010-11 and 2011-12.  Having been capped at U-21 level for England and been crowned Burnley’s Player-of-the-Year in 2011, he was voted as the twin-striker in the PFA’s divisional Team-of-the-Year in 2012, alongside Rickie Lambert.

Yet, having signed him, that summer, and acclaimed him as

“an exciting forward-thinking player,” who had “demonstrated… a hungry and enthusiastic attitude, with a desire to work hard,”

manager Nigel Adkins seldom paired him with Lambert, often preferring to bring him on as a substitute for Rickie. So it was left to Mauricio Pochettino to harness this pairing, with Lambert dropping deep to put in his speedy partner, in the manner expected, back in the day, of Ron Davies feeding Mick Channon. Exciting as Jay proved in that role in 2012-13, he was still along way from emulating man-on-the-run Channon.

But 2013-14 he started to come close as he, Lambert and Adam Lallana rattled many a Premier League defence and England international recognition came to all three,with Jay winning a cap v Chile. It all augured well with the World Cup on the horizon. But then in the April came a severe blow when he suffered an ACL injury at Manchester Citywhich caused him to miss not only the tournament in Brazil, but the whole of 2014-15.

As he fought his way back to fitness the club offered him a four-year extension in May 2015 and he made his return to competitive football when he came on in the Europa Cup game at Vitesse Arnhem in the August. Although he was still full of running and as brave as ever, it seemed however that something was missing. Whether it was the absence of his two amigos, Lambert and Lallana, who had both decamped to Liverpool or the fact that he had to impress new managers, first Ronald Koeman and then Claude Puel, is not clear but he never managed to recapture that ‘13-14′ form that had catapulted him into the plans of Roy Hodgson.

In the summer of 2017 with Saints again changing their manager a decision was taken to let him go, with the fact Saints were able to get a £12m fee for him probably influencing the reasoning. He joined West Brom but could not prevent them losing their Premier League status but after a year in the Championship he returned to the top flight when he resigned for his home-town club.