£4,700-per-minute: Rodwell the worst pound-for-pound signing in Premier League history

Robin Bairner

4 Feb 2022 20:14 GMT
6 min read

Jack Rodwell, the former Premier League wonderkid, is now a player at Western Sydney Wanderers in Australia’s A League.

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He was a player who seemed destined for the very top of the game when he made his breakthrough with Everton, only to suffer subsequent disappointment at Manchester City and Sunderland.

For many, the 30-year-old can lay a strong claim to being the worst pound-for-pound signing in the history of England’s top flight.

Everything began so promisingly for Rodwell. He became the youngest player to feature for Everton in European football, debuting before he had turned 17, and signing a five-year deal with the club. As he gradually broke into the first team, the hype was building, aided by a super performance in a 3-1 win over Manchester United in 2010 and an international debut a year later.

All this time, though, there were signs that all might not be well. Rodwell was frequently struck by injury issues and made only 17 appearances in 2011/12 before making a £12 million switch to Manchester City.

Rodwell's Man City regret

His career began to run aground at the Etihad Stadium. He featured prominently in his early months at the Etihad Stadium, but as his injury issues began to surface again, he began to find himself out of his depth due to the competition at Man City.

Rodwell later hinted at his regret at his move when asked about his advice to other young English players wanted by City.

“I would weigh up your options and ask yourself if you want to be playing regularly,” Rodwell said.

“I would probably say: 'Don't sign now; get as much football as you can.'

“If I’d been playing regularly the last two years, I would probably have been at the World Cup.”

In total, he managed only 25 appearances for the club, but he did earn a Premier League winners’ medal.

Sunderland collapse

It was only after he moved to Sunderland – then a Premier League club – that things really fell apart for him.

Injury issues consistently plagued him, forcing him regularly to the sidelines and costing him a regular spot in the starting XI. Equally, the club was struggling, with Rodwell infamously involved in a Premier League record 39 league matches without starting a win over 1370 days.

Sunderland’s relegation at the end of 2016/17 proved to be a disaster for both the club and the player. On £70,000 per week wages, Rodwell would not take a pay cut and, finally out of the credit his early hype had bought him, there were no clubs willing to match that burden.

The following year, he made only two league appearances, despite his enormous salary and understandably frustrated Sunderland fans as a consequence.

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"I feel like I got made a scapegoat without doing anything wrong, really. I was ready to play but, for whatever reason, I wasn’t ever picked, things like that happen in football," he told the Everton FC podcast.

By the time he left, Rodwell had cost the club nearly £5,000 per minute played and had only won nine matches with a Sunderland in freefall.

Spells at Blackburn and Sheffield United followed, but it is at Western Sydney Wanderers where Rodwell is trying to finally make something out of his career, having become public enemy no.1 in Sunderland.