Rodwell's injury blight continues...

Michael Kenrick , 8 January, 23comments | Jump to most recent

Rodwell was a £12m signing last summer from Everton but he has not played since suffering the latest in a series of hamstring injuries on England U21 duty in October.

The 22-year-old had hoped to be back before Christmas but suffered another setback and is now unlikely to return before the final week of January.

His time at Goodison Park was also blighted by injury which ruled him out of Euro 2012 and the Olympic Games, but Man City manager Roberto Mancini feels he is young enough to still go on and prove he was right to sign him.

"We hope we can improve this situation for him," Mancini said. "He is young and he has quality - he has everything to be a good midfielder.

"I worry because when we bought him we thought he was a good player and then he had these problems with hamstrings.

"He is getting better and we hope we can recover him in two or three weeks. He needs to start working with the group and he didn't do this until Thursday."

Quotes or other material sourced from Sky Sports

Reader Comments (23)

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Rahul Gandhi
1 Posted 08/01/2013 at 17:07:52

Oh! Many Thanks Mancini! You have revived our season by your valuation on our young Rod!

Steavey Buckley
2 Posted 08/01/2013 at 17:49:22

Sometimes a physical body is not cut out to be a top athlete.

Michael Owen was never the same when he damaged his hamstring against Leeds about 10 years ago.

Steven Telford
3 Posted 08/01/2013 at 18:32:09

What to play a game, look at the article above and replace the Manchini with __ye_ and Rodwell with ___all__
Oh well, 6M net.

Andy Meighan
4 Posted 08/01/2013 at 19:07:49

"We thought he was a good player" — so what does he think now? What a fantastic bit of business getting that much for that overated crock. And to think there were some fans who thought he was the.long term answer to our centre-half problems... We haven't missed him much, have we?

Steve Edwards
5 Posted 08/01/2013 at 20:10:21

Don't crow too much... Kevin Mirallas, the guy we spent some of the money on, isn't exactly an ever-present, is he?

Robin Cannon
6 Posted 08/01/2013 at 20:23:46

Mirallas'
2011-12 - 83% of league matches played
2010-2011 - 90%

2009-2010 - 60%
2008-2009 - 79%
2007-2008 - 92%
2006-2007 - 60%
etc

So we're talking about what player who has consistently missed significant time for several seasons with injury, never playing in more than 70% of league games, versus one player who's had a niggling problem this season but a solid appearance record over more than five years...

Steve Edwards
7 Posted 08/01/2013 at 20:38:18

All very well but the dreaded hamstring has a tendancy to keep on repeating. The result being players with pace lose it and are never the same player again. Michael Owen is one example, Torres is another. Moyes is right to be worried about Mirallas, I know I am.

Steven Telford
8 Posted 08/01/2013 at 22:25:55

Robin #410 respect for the stats, lets hope he comes good, we need somthing special to make the top 4

Lee Jamieson
9 Posted 09/01/2013 at 09:04:56

We could say the same for Dan Gosling he has only made around 15 appearances for Newcastle in three years, it looks like the club were right not to give him a new contract. He is clearly another crock

Steven Telford
10 Posted 09/01/2013 at 10:57:24

The only thing with Gosling is that we missed out from Newcastle not paying for him, for the disrespect he showed us it would be nice to see his career fade into nothing.

Colin Wainwright
11 Posted 09/01/2013 at 21:41:52

TBH I can't stand this gloating about getting shut of a young player with tremendous talent, because he seems injury prone. I still have a feeling this sale could come back and bite us in the arse.

Gavin Ramejkis
12 Posted 10/01/2013 at 07:40:22

Lee and Steven, don't forget that Moyes left Gosling on the pitch when he was in agony: I could never understand that at the time, the lad was in obvious pain.

No loss to us now but not good for a manager to leave one of his own on a pitch with a glaring injury... remember last season when he left Howard on the pitch, his leg was that bad he couldn't cross his own area to stop a Hibbert backpass going into his own net.

Paul Ellam
13 Posted 10/01/2013 at 09:17:16

I feel a bit sorry for the lad. I guess it proves we were right to sell him but I still hope he gets fit, not for Citteh, for England.

Moyes does seem to know who is best to let go. There aren't many who go on to better things after leaving us either. IMWT

Steven Telford
14 Posted 10/01/2013 at 11:34:07

Gavin, I confess I am not familiar with the incidence you describe, but I suspect there may be more sides to that story.

Colin, I feel gloating is only fair in the sense that: We gave Rodwell his chance in the big time, and he chose not to reward that with loyalty. That’s one thing, the second thing is, he opted to warm a bench rather than to play football. Yes, he is richer on the Man City bench, but it’s not like he would have been poor had he stayed with us. Two fair reasons to not wish Jack all the best – but neither to wish him all the worst... just irrelevance and (admittedly) a disingenuous remark or two when he warms the bench.

Matt Traynor
15 Posted 10/01/2013 at 11:52:07

Steven #762, there's no backstory here about loyalty and Rodwell. Moyes was happy to see him sold to get some money to fund his own reconstruction of the team. Rodwell never asked to go. Same as Arteta never asked to go, but the money was needed to keep the lenders happy, hence why it was "rushed" through on deadline day.

Seriously, how quick do you think these transfers get done? A players contract is so frigging complex now compared to 20 years ago a lot of work is done in the background before the player blows into a tube and signs on the dotted line.

Steven Telford
16 Posted 10/01/2013 at 17:27:54

Matt,
If you are correct, fair enough - maybe it’s a misconception on my part that (for the most part) if a player wants to stay he stays. I may have been a bit harsh on Rodwell. It's so hard to know what goes on behind closed doors, I think if a player really does not want to go, he should make a public statement so the fans know how to receive them if they again play at Goodison.
I have no proof, but as a matter of instict, I feel Arteta could have stayed if he had wanted.

Brian Waring
17 Posted 10/01/2013 at 17:37:43

Cough, splutter, cough...Gibson...crock...cough

Matt Traynor
18 Posted 10/01/2013 at 18:56:51

Steven #827 you can read what you want to into statements, and personally I never believe any public utterances from players, agents or clubs - it's usually spin, and trying to tell the fans what they think they want to hear, and most won't believe anyway - just read Toffeeweb on a daily basis!

In Rodwell's case, the club were happy for him to go, given the size of the fee. I think they looked at the fee, and not the add-ons, as with the best will in the world, I doubt even a fully-fit Rodwell will play 50 games in that Man City side. Given the club were happy to let him go, Rodwell's only decision was whether to up his salary from £34k a week to £100k a week. If your employer basically says you can go, and someone offers you three times the money, what do you do?

In Arteta's case, I believe the deal was long done in principle between the clubs - it had been mooted enough times in the press in the months before. Arsenal had a weird transfer window by their standards that summer, but it was largely down to who was moving out - Nasri was a certainty but I think they hoped against hope that Fabregas would give them "one more year". The last-day transfer suited Everton as the money was good for a player approaching 30 who was then amongst the highest earners. The stuff about him wanting the move, and dropping his pay demands when it broke down in the afternoon was absolute shit, part of a spin which many clubs partake in. I'm not saying he wasn't happy to go, but I am saying he would've been happy to stay.

The following January's transfer activity was largely covered by the sale of Bilyaletdinov.

Lee Courtliff
19 Posted 12/01/2013 at 01:25:01

The most overrated player I have ever seen at Goodison in 23 years.

Jack seems a nice lad so good luck to him but we really haven't missed him at all.

Craig Fletcher
20 Posted 12/01/2013 at 01:52:36

Still early days in his career at his new club to make a judgment. Personally I think we did bloody well out of the deal, considering that even this season he wasn't likely to be close to being a regular first teamer. Hopefully I'm wrong as I do feel sorry for the lad, but he may be likely to follow the path of so many bright promising young things who slowly fade into obscurity as injuries take their toll on performance.

Certainly I don't begrudge him the move, as has been pointed out, if you get a job offer two-three times what you are being paid now you'd be silly not to look at it. We got Mirallas out of it, so far so good.

Keith Glazzard
21 Posted 12/01/2013 at 03:31:20

I passed Jack in a Manchester street last week. It took me a little while to realise who he was, basically I'd forgotten all about him. And I saw most of his Goodison appearances.

David Barks
22 Posted 12/01/2013 at 03:51:46

Young players are overplayed. A teenagers body is not meant to go through the punishment of 10 months of constant professional training and playing. I really do believe that. In the US they play high school and college for all professional sports, where their hours of training are tightly regulated. A developing body needs time to heal and develop, not constantly be worked. I truly believe this.

Tom Bowers
23 Posted 12/01/2013 at 12:11:15

A very talented player who has had atrocious injury problems.
I still believe he will impact the Prem. when fit and given the right coaching as it seems to me he needs to steel up his game. He needs to be more deliberate and have more concentration to prevent some of the silly mistakes he has been making. Playing alongside YaYa will help him although they generally play the same role.
However the Blues have obviously bettered themselves with his departure for thetime being.

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