What does the future hold for Jack Rodwell? New Sunderland boss Jack Ross has his say

Jack Ross will get to work on assessing his Sunderland squad and determining who wants to be at the club and who doesn't.
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As part of that process, the new manager will take time to assess the future of some of Sunderland’s high-earners such as Jack Rodwell.

Resolving Rodwell’s future will be high on the to-do list of the new owners.

Sunderland manager Jack Ross.Sunderland manager Jack Ross.
Sunderland manager Jack Ross.
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The former Manchester City and Everton midfielder became an outcast under former boss Chris Coleman, but will still be earning £40,000-a-week in League One, a wage Sunderland can’t afford in the third tier. He isn’t alone with the likes of Lee Cattermole, Didier Ndong and Lamine Kone also on big wages.

Rodwell, who has a year left on his contract, was earning £70,000 a week in the Championship but his 40 per cent cut following relegation from the Premier League kicks in this summer.

When asked about Rodwell’s situation, Ross said: “He just falls into the same bracket of everyone else; he’s part of the assessment of the squad and what we can have within it and what’s the right mix for us.

“It’s a question of who wants to be here and who wants to be in this league.

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“We need to have players who are desperate to play for this club, and maybe not desperate to play in this league necessarily, but who understand the challenge of what lies ahead to get us promoted.

“I haven’t really differentiated between different problems at this stage and different players, they all fall under the same bracket.

“Day one of pre-season is not all that far away so we’ve got a lot to do in a short period of time and it really starts this morning and I’m looking forward to it.

“I feel I haven’t started doing the job properly yet.”

Ross was officially unveiled to the media at the club’s Academy of Light training base yesterday afternoon.

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The Sunderland squad is due to return to training on June 22 ahead of the pre-season programme which is still to be finalised.

Sunderland will be spending a week training in Portugal in early July and the club is aiming to organise a friendly while they are over there.