The story of the forgotten Jack Rodwell. What happened to the talented English footballer?

The English defensive midfielder is an Everton product. He was regarded as a huge generational talent who unfortunately, due to frequent injuries, failed to fulfil his huge potential.

At the age of 14 he was already playing for Everton’s under-18 team and a year later he was even playing for the reserve team. When he was 16 years and 284 days old, he became the youngest player ever to play for Everton.

He signed his first professional contract and moved to the first team. Initially, he picked up starts more from the bench, but he finished the 2008/2009 season with twenty-five starts.

Over the years, he became a mainstay of Everton’s starting line-up and one of the most talented players in English football. No wonder then that after a hundred games in the colours of “The Toffees” Manchester City reached for him.

From the start, it was not the engagement Rodwell had envisioned. In October, he picked up an injury that sidelined him until January. Upon his return, he played four games, followed by another enforced two-month break.

He only managed 15 games that first year. Most of them from the bench, of course. The Citizens were on the rise. They were buying and he was getting more competition. He was barely in the game and finished the next year with only ten starts.

Rodwell decided that wasn’t the way to go and moved to Sunderland. Unfortunately injuries plagued him there as well and so the club later had to get rid of him as they couldn’t afford his wages.

He spent one year in a Blackburn jersey where he managed 21 games and another year in a Sheffield United jersey. Also due to the coronavirus pandemic he only played two games.

Despite signing a one-year contract extension, he did not play a single game the following season.

After fifteen years in England, he moved to the other side of the globe, to Australia, where he donned the jersey of Sydney Wanderers. He lasted only a year there and signed with Sydney FC for the current season of the Australian league.

The English footballer is still only 32 years old. However, a successful return to Europe is definitely not expected.

Source: Wikipedia, Transfermarket