Jack Rodwell

Jack Rodwell plays as a centre-half or central midfielder and has attracted the attention of most of the big clubs at this point. He was playing for the Under-16s at 14 he was gagging to get his first senior game.

That opportunity finally came a couple of years later on a freezing night in Alkmaar, when David Moyes confidently fielded a younger team and gave a couple of lads, Rodwell and Vidarsson, a chance to make their debuts on another great European night for the Blues.

Opportunities after that where predictably rare, but Jack Rodwell did come on as a sub for the last few minutes at  Sunderland to register his official debut in the Premier League. The next highlight came after he reached 17 and was able to sign his first professional contract, a 2-year deal in March 2008.

After the lack of transfers in during the dreadful Summer of 2008, Rodwell was thrust into the limelight and exhibited some excellent composure on the ball.  But it was mainly a brief blooding, as he was consigned back to the reserves when enough faces finally reappeared after September 2008.

As is the way with David Moyes, new prospects from the Youth Academy must undergo a lengthy and largely discontinuous bedding-in process with the senior team, and this was Rodwell's lot despite him showing far better quality than many of his first team colleagues.  Ah well... Moyes knows best.

He is held in high regard by many, and shows tremendous promise for the future, as a defender or midfield player, but his development has been slow and he is not really imposing himself on games like you feel he copuld, nor is he getting forward enough to score the kind of spectacular goals we know he is capable of.

In July 2010, despite intense specuclation that he would move to Chelsea or Manchester United, Rodwell gave Everton fans a massive boost when he signed up for another five years at Goodison. And great things were expected of him but Season 2010-11 didn't go according to plan.

The season had hardly started when he picked up an injury that kept him sidelined for almost two months... then Moyes gave him another two months on the subs' bench and he just never got going properly after that. It was telling that no-one came after him in the summer, despite Moyes supposedly hawking him to Spurs in order get money in for Charles N'Zogbia.  Then he missed most of pre-season 2011 witth an infection.

When he was finally fit, he started to figure with some regularity as Moyes began to rebuild his team without the departed Mikel Arteta.  But Rodwell's resumed progress seemed to have come unstuck when an over-zealous Martin Atkinson wrongly showed him a completely erroneous straight red card for a fair challenge on Uruguyan cheat Louis Suarez after just 23 minuites of the Goodison derby. After unanimous uproar form all and sundry, pundits included, the card was rightly rescinded by the FA, though the damage to Everton had been done and they lost the game 2-0, Rodwell's three-game ban was struck off.

The experience proved something of a kick in the arse for Rodwell, who responded better and showed more desire in subsequent games, including when Fellaini was suspended against Newcastle.  Fabio Capello was at that match and saw enough to give Rodwell his England debut the following week as a second-half sub in a rare England win against Spain.

But with little more than a handfull of appearnces for Everton, his niggling hamsting problem falring up again and again to keep him on the sdelines, things finally came to a head over the Easter weekend in April 2012, when his umpteeth attempt at revovery was twarted by yet another hamstring tear.

Jack Rodwell's season was declared over — and in all likelihood his hopes of playing in Euro2012 in the summer.. and teh Olympics, where he ahd a great chance of wearing he Great Britain shirt. It was the sixth time he had injured his hamstring that season and he was consigned to visit specialist Bayern Munich club doctor and specialist Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt in Germany to diagnose the source of his continuing problems.

By Michael Kenrick
Last updated April 2012