| Jack Rodwell 16:14 - Jan 16 with 4590 views | JackBaston |
Sorry if ferdy, tried finding if it's been posted before
But to those who say we won't do a Sunderland, how similar does this story sound?
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sport/15845087.SUNDERLAND__Why_the_Jack_Rodwell
WHEN the story of Sunderland’s calamitous decline is told in a couple of decades’ time, the role played by Jack Rodwell will barely merit a footnote. Yet when it comes to explaining why the club finds itself at the foot of the Championship table, saddled with debts of more than £100m, the tale of the invisible England international could hardly be more instructive.
Even for a club that has set new standards of ineptitude in the last few years, Rodwell’s three-and-a-half years as a Sunderland player represent a remarkable new low. And despite this week’s talk of cancelled contracts and mutual agreements, the most staggering aspect of all is that there could still be another 18 months of this sorry saga to run.
The numbers make for harrowing reading. Rodwell was signed from Manchester City for £10m in August 2014, and is understood to have been awarded a five-year contract worth £70,000-a-week.
He has spent 180 weeks as a Sunderland player, picking up £12.6m in wages. In that time, he has made 76 senior appearances, 23 of which were as a substitute. If his transfer fee and wages are combined, he has cost Sunderland £299,000 per appearance. Or to put it another way, the club has shelled out more than £4,700 for every minute he has been on the field.
Perhaps that would have been worth it if Rodwell had been leading Sunderland to a succession of Premier League wins. Instead, the 26-year-old has made 44 league starts for the Black Cats — and only one of those games resulted in a victory. To all intents and purposes, Sunderland have spent more than £22m to secure a 4-0 win at Crystal Palace in February 2017.
The sums are staggering, and if Rodwell opts to see out the remainder of his contract, he will leave the Stadium of Light having earned £18.2m in wages over the duration of his deal. Plus the one win bonus from Selhurst Park.
Rarely can a player have taken so much for so little, and having completely fallen out of love with the game over the course of the last 12 months, it would suit everyone for Rodwell to walk away and make a new start.
A player with three senior England caps to his name, and who was once touted as the answer to this country’s central-midfield issues, would have the opportunity to rebuild his career while there might still be clubs in the top two divisions willing to take a chance on him. Chris Coleman would have a £70,000-a-week gap in his wage bill, waiting to be filled by some much-needed acquisitions. And Sunderland would be able to move on from an extremely costly mistake.
It all sounds so easy, yet the fact that Rodwell remains on Sunderland’s books despite having asked to leave at the start of the month proves it is anything but. The reality is that the Black Cats’ highest-paid player is perfectly within his rights to sit tight for the next 18 months and continue to count his money. Ultimately, it is the club to blame for the current shambles, not him.
What on earth were Sunderland thinking back in 2014 when they signed off the Rodwell deal and agreed to the midfielder being one of the only players on the club’s books not to have a relegation clause inserted into his contract?
The transfer made no sense at the time, and is even harder to explain now, yet it was far from the only instance of dreadful decision making to have occurred on Ellis Short’s watch. In fact, the Rodwell signing fits neatly into a pattern of chaotic management that has driven Sunderland to the brink of League One.
Two-and-a-half months before Rodwell arrived, Sunderland had clambered to Premier League safety under Gus Poyet. They were locked into a recurring narrative. New manager arrives and drags the team out of the bottom three. New manager asks for a barrel-load of money and is given it to make new signings. New manager abandons everything that his predecessor had been building. New manager starts to struggle, is sacked, and becomes the old manager. A new manager is appointed and the whole sorry cycle starts again.
The upshot was that Sunderland signed 45 players under a succession of different bosses, and made a profit on just three of them. That’s how you rack up £100m of debt even though your owner continues tipping money down a black hole.
Sporting director Lee Congerton was in charge of recruitment when Rodwell was signed, and no doubt wanted to make his mark. Margaret Byrne was the chief executive charged with the task of drawing up contracts, and appears to have been out of her depth from the outset. Poyet wanted high-profile new signings, and was delighted to see Sunderland outbid a number of their Premier League rivals to land a player who had recently been playing for England. |  | | |  |
| Jack Rodwell on 16:24 - Jan 16 with 4538 views | TheResurrection |
Maybe this Lee Congerton fella is still available to replace our Director of Football?
I mean, anyone is better for some. [Post edited 16 Jan 2018 16:24]
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| Jack Rodwell on 16:30 - Jan 16 with 4501 views | Darran |
| Jack Rodwell on 16:24 - Jan 16 by TheResurrection |
Maybe this Lee Congerton fella is still available to replace our Director of Football?
I mean, anyone is better for some. [Post edited 16 Jan 2018 16:24]
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Clucas is our Rodwell. |  |
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| Jack Rodwell on 16:42 - Jan 16 with 4445 views | A_Fans_Dad |
I have one minor disagreement with your post, you stated "The sums are staggering, and if Rodwell opts to see out the remainder of his contract, he will leave the Stadium of Light having earned £18.2m in wages over the duration of his deal."
I think maybe the word "earned" should be replaced by defrauded, maybe even stolen.
£18m is a staggering amount of money to be given for doing something you enjoy, don't we all wish we could do even ten percent of that? |  | | |
| Jack Rodwell on 17:08 - Jan 16 with 4375 views | WAFU |
| Jack Rodwell on 16:30 - Jan 16 by Darran |
Clucas is our Rodwell. |
And that’s doing Rodwell a disservice. | | | |
| Jack Rodwell on 17:36 - Jan 16 with 4256 views | icecoldjack |
| Jack Rodwell on 17:08 - Jan 16 by WAFU |
And that’s doing Rodwell a disservice. |
Clucas is no where near the level of Rodwell. We will end up with about 5/6 players that we cannot shift in the next few seasons.
Our only saving grace is that Swansea is a small place and crap footballers stealing a living wouldn't wash for very long if the club is going down the tubes.
I've mentioned Sunderland so many times on this board, the scary thing about them is that like it or not they are a proper big club and with their size they still struggle, they get big gates and can't pay their way.
They like us and many other prem or former prem teams are getting strangled by crap footballers on big long contracts that nobody will touch, it's my biggest worry about the club.
Huw has totally fooked us, Laudrup always stated a small squad with high quality was the way forward, Huw just signed mostly utter sh1te and we'll be paying for it until the club goes bust or some lucky dip Billionaire decides to come and live in Swansea !
Goes to show |  | | |
| Jack Rodwell on 17:47 - Jan 16 with 4193 views | swanforthemoney |
| Jack Rodwell on 16:30 - Jan 16 by Darran |
Clucas is our Rodwell. |
Part of the problem is the lack of a relegation clause in Rodwells contract. The same thing really screwed Bristol many years ago. They had the likes of Gerry Gow on big contracts down in League 1 and couldnt move them on. Same with Birmingham and the giant striker Zigic..
I hope we have relegation clauses in ALL contracts. Especially Clucas. |  |
| I stand in the North Stand
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| Jack Rodwell on 18:00 - Jan 16 with 4152 views | icecoldjack |
| Jack Rodwell on 17:47 - Jan 16 by swanforthemoney |
Part of the problem is the lack of a relegation clause in Rodwells contract. The same thing really screwed Bristol many years ago. They had the likes of Gerry Gow on big contracts down in League 1 and couldnt move them on. Same with Birmingham and the giant striker Zigic..
I hope we have relegation clauses in ALL contracts. Especially Clucas. |
My hope too. It would also explain why Huw signs such sh1te players, they are the only ones who are happy to accept a relegation clause while a proper top player with plenty of choices will probably say fook that mate i'll sign for someone else.
It would explain the dross if nothing else. It wouldn't surprise me if one or two are on a fixed contract but the way the club has been run it's hard to take anything for granted ! | | | |
| Jack Rodwell on 18:12 - Jan 16 with 4117 views | PozuelosSideys |
Not sure if anyone in the Trust will be able to answer this, but..:
Do we still put clauses in the contracts of players who we sign whereby there is a substantial reduction in wages for the player should we get relegated? I know we used to (apparently) and was wondering if this was still the norm. Standards have slipped of course, but im hoping this particular condition of employment was still in place?
Additionally, if it does, do the same terms and conditions apply for Board Members who draw a salary from the club? For instance, should we be relegated, does our Chairman still draw a £500k pa salary? After all, our income reduces by 80% pretty much overnight in that scenario..
Edit: Also, in the scenario that we get relegated, is it possible for the shareholders to still withdraw a dividend for this financial year given that "on paper", the financials will likely show a significant improvement on past years? [Post edited 16 Jan 2018 18:22]
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| "Michu, Britton and Williams could have won 3-0 on their own. They wouldn't have required a keeper." | | Poll: | Hattricks |
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| Jack Rodwell on 19:29 - Jan 16 with 3946 views | ItchySphincter |
| Jack Rodwell on 17:36 - Jan 16 by icecoldjack |
Clucas is no where near the level of Rodwell. We will end up with about 5/6 players that we cannot shift in the next few seasons.
Our only saving grace is that Swansea is a small place and crap footballers stealing a living wouldn't wash for very long if the club is going down the tubes.
I've mentioned Sunderland so many times on this board, the scary thing about them is that like it or not they are a proper big club and with their size they still struggle, they get big gates and can't pay their way.
They like us and many other prem or former prem teams are getting strangled by crap footballers on big long contracts that nobody will touch, it's my biggest worry about the club.
Huw has totally fooked us, Laudrup always stated a small squad with high quality was the way forward, Huw just signed mostly utter sh1te and we'll be paying for it until the club goes bust or some lucky dip Billionaire decides to come and live in Swansea !
Goes to show |
This is not a Laudrup thread Anthony. |  |
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| Jack Rodwell on 19:32 - Jan 16 with 3928 views | yescomeon |
Maybe I shouldn't be but I would be surprised if any of our players didn't have a relegation clause. But say it's a 40% reduction, as a club we are enormously reliant on the tv money, so our revenue would be down by more than 40% would be my guess. Perhaps the parachute payments will cover it for a season or two while we offload the highest earners. A 40% decrease to £40k is still £24k, which again I guess it is not inconceivable some of our players are "earning", and that is still a lot of money for a club like ours in the championship.
From transfermarkt the contract expiries for the first team are (all end of june):
Britton - 2018
Rangel - 2018
Ki - 2018
McBurnie - 2018
Routledge - 2019
Fabianski - 2019
Olsson - 2019
Fer - 2019
Narsingh - 2019
Bony - 2019
v.d. Hoorn - 2019
Amat - 2019
Grimes - 2019
Dyer - 2020
Naughton - 2020
Nordfeldt - 2020
Fernadez - 2020
Ayew - 2020
Carroll - 2020
Fulton -2020
Mawson - 2020
Baston - 2020
Montero - 2020
Bartley - 2021
Clucas - 2021
Mesa - 2021
The parachute payments should keep us ticking over up to the end of all of those contracts if it came to it, so we should cope if the relegation clauses are in the contracts. You'd think we could sell the likes of Fabianski, Fernadez, Mawson, Baston and Mesa we could sell and maybe Bony, Ayew, Carroll, Montero, Bartley and Amat too (the last two we should probably keep a hold of if we go down). |  |
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| Jack Rodwell on 19:59 - Jan 16 with 3848 views | Jack11 |
What this proves once again is that footballers contracts have to be far more performance based. A 60k per week wage should be built up of a 10k basic, up to 20k for team related, e.g wins, draws, clean sheets and then up to 30k for a few individual targets based on position. In this case Rodwell would be on 10k per week which is still 10k too much but it would be more appropriate. | | | |
| Jack Rodwell on 20:23 - Jan 16 with 3783 views | jasper_T |
| Jack Rodwell on 19:59 - Jan 16 by Jack11 |
What this proves once again is that footballers contracts have to be far more performance based. A 60k per week wage should be built up of a 10k basic, up to 20k for team related, e.g wins, draws, clean sheets and then up to 30k for a few individual targets based on position. In this case Rodwell would be on 10k per week which is still 10k too much but it would be more appropriate. |
The clubs that want to go down this route will find it hard to get players.
It's a sellers market. Good players (and their agents) will always dictate terms. | | | |
| Jack Rodwell on 20:36 - Jan 16 with 3749 views | grabsplatter |
| Jack Rodwell on 16:30 - Jan 16 by Darran |
Clucas is our Rodwell. |
Not defending Clucas but Rodwell was cr@p, overpaid & usually injured.
Clucas is usually fit |  | | |
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