Jack Rodwell is the forgotten man at Sheffield United. Former England and Manchester City star arrived at Bramall Lane last January after being invited to Shirecliffe by boss Chris Wilder. Rodwell had left previous club Blackburn Rovers in the summer of 2019 and was looking for the chance to resurrect his career. A damaging spell at Sunderland saw Rodwell portrayed as the villain of the piece – a theme that was exacerbated by his fringe role in the Netflix documentary surrounding the Black Cats. Rodwell was shown refusing to agree to the cancellation of his contract – reportedly worth £70,000 a week at one stage – although it was terminated in June 2018 following the club’s relegation to League One. The ongoing pandemic and strict rules mean behind-closed-doors matches are out of the question, blocking a possible route back to full fitness for him.
Chris Wilder said: “Jack’s career and CV, before coming here, saw him playing in the Premier League and he was excellent. He’s been quite unfortunate with a few things. He’s been incredibly unfortunate here over the last two months where he had a heavy fall and he’s had an issue that is a struggle to get over. We’re working hard with him. He was a punt. Financially, it wasn’t a deal that affected the club in any big way. We’re not tied into anything big. It was a punt to see if we could get Jack up to the levels that he showed earlier on in his career. Jack Rodwell during his time at Sunderland. His attitude has been spot-on but sometimes you have these runs, and Jack is having a run right now with this injury that’s really unfortunate. Hopefully, he gets over this and tries to get his career back up and running. He covers a load of positions. The gamble we had with him is that he stays healthy and stays fit but he’s had this really unfortunate injury. But in terms of his attitude, there’s no issues there. I wouldn’t sign a bad player that’s got a bad attitude. I wouldn’t sign a player, as I’ve said before, who wants to pull the group apart. There’s all sorts of idiotic, lazy, uneducated views on Jack and what he is as a person and player – all wrong and all false. We’re trying. Sometimes they (gambles) work, sometimes they don’t. At the moment it’s not working but who’s to say it won’t turn around for Jack?”
