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There was a clear choice to be made in January when other clubs were sniffing around him – accept a fee in the region of £2million for our most prolific goalscorer or profit in a different way by using his talent to get us out of League One before losing him on a free transfer.

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In the end, the best option in eyes of everyone, and most importantly Simon Grayson, was to retain him for the remainder of his deal and make the most of what is a fine attacking asset.

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It was in the hope of performances like that produced by him against Tranmere Rovers that repeated offers of a seven-figure fee were rejected.

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When Jermaine turns on the style, there are few strikers like him in this division. He is almost in a class of his own.

I'll concede that his form since the end of the transfer window has not been brilliant but he's the type of player who can make the difference between promotion and another year in League One – a matchwinner in the truest sense of the word.

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For the past three years we've seen many times that Jermaine is blessed with exceptional goalscoring talent.

For that reason, the decision to hold onto him was nothing more than a calculated gamble, one that most of us expected to pay off. I don't doubt that at the end of the season we'll look back on it as an astute call.

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The fact is that if he hits the sort of goalscoring form he is capable of, Leeds will get out of this division. It's very rare to see United drop points when he plays as well as he did against Tranmere. That's the influence he has when he's on his game.

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I've listened to criticism of Jermaine in recent weeks, generated no doubt by six games without a goal. That's a drought by his standards but, from one striker to another, I know what it's like when you're stuck in those spells.

Sometimes the reality is that you're not doing the business. At other times, your performance is affected by the way the team around you is playing.

I've played in games where I've come off the pitch thinking 'that wasn't me at my best' but I can also remember times when my overriding thought was 'I've had no bloody service today!'

The problem for a striker, particularly one who scores as regularly as Jermaine, is that the vast majority of people judge your performance on your goals. If you don't find the net, people don't rate your contribution as anything other than average. If you score a hat-trick, it can mask a poor display that actually did you very little credit.

There's no in between with forwards – you're either the golden boy or the scapegoat.

I'm sure that Jermaine has learned by now to accept criticism from the terraces and is able to work out how much of it is deserved and how much of it is unfair.

Whatever your opinion of him, when he does what he did to Tranmere the results are there for everyone to see. In reality, keeping him was no gamble.

Every good team needs a good goalscorer, and in Jermaine we've got one of the best.