Leeds United suffered a hugely disappointing defeat to Aston Villa on Thursday night, as Jesse Marsch's Elland Road debut turned sour.

The Whites showed promising signs early on in the game before Ollie Watkins opened the scoring for the away side. An awful second-half performance led to Steven Gerrard's men finding two more and leaving the Yorkshire-based outfit in real bother in the Premier League.

If Marsch was hoping for some big games for some of his more high-profile players, then he was sadly mistaken, with Rodrigo arguably the worst of the bunch.

The Spain international arrived from Valencia having built up considerable top-level experience of playing in La Liga and the Champions League too over the years.

None of that however has been on show at Elland Road though, and his current campaign has been nothing short of a disaster - he's managed just three goals in 24 games in all competitions.

Against Villa, Rodrigo was so bad that Marsch hooked him at half-time for the much younger and inexperienced Joe Gelhardt, and that was a damning statement on where things are with the forward.

As per Sofascore, the Spaniard had far fewer touches and passes than even goalkeeper Illan Meslier, while anytime he did have the ball, he invariably lost it by being bullied by the Villa midfield and defence who left him no time to turn and pick a pass.

He had no shots on goal, provided no key passes or crosses, and lost possession nine times in the 45 minutes that he was on the pitch - the kind of wholly ineffective display that unsurprisingly had the Elland Road faithful begin to turn on him.

Writing in his post-match player ratings for Leeds Live, Beren Cross gave him the lowest score of a three, saying: "A wretched performance from the club's record signing. Persistently miscontrolled the ball, misplaced passes, went backwards and slowed down counter-attacks. Confidence drained from him and the crowd were audibly frustrated with every passing error."

Dubbed as being "anonymous" by The Yorkshire Post's Leon Wobschall, Rodrigo endured a nightmare display, and it's one that will surely have Marsch thinking twice about starting him again anytime soon.

The Whites find themselves in the midst of a real relegation dogfight, and the Spaniard's performance lacked the composure to deal with that pressure, and the quality to even lift the side out of it.

While it may well be a very bold call to suggest Marsch should never start Rodrigo again this season, it could be the kind of ruthless decision that not only drops a badly under-performing player, but also lights a much-needed fire under the rest of the squad.

AND in other news: Marsch must unleash "phenomenal" rarely-seen Leeds star, he's more exciting than Joffy