'That's not who I am' - Ex-Sunderland player hits out after being made into 'scapegoat'

Former Sunderland midfielder Jack Rodwell has claimed that he was made a “scapegoat” during his time at the club.

The ex-Manchester City and Everton talent arrived on Wearside in 2014 and spent four years with the Black Cats before joining Blackburn Rovers on a free transfer. During his stint at the Stadium of Light, Sunderland suffered relegation from the Premier League, but while many other players on relatively lucrative contracts left the club, Rodwell stuck around in the North East.

He would, however, record just 104 minutes of Championship football across the entirety of the 2017/18 league campaign, with Sunderland succumbing to a second consecutive relegation at the end of the season. His inactivity was also portrayed in Netflix documentary Sunderland ‘Til I Die, with many supporters taking a dim view of Rodwell’s failure to walk away upon the club’s exit from the top flight.

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But the player himself has taken a different view of that controversial period of his career. In an interview with Optus Sport this week, he said: “The thing that bugs me about it - especially afterwards - is, ‘For Jack it was just the money.’ If it was just the money, I would have stayed at Man City.

“So I went from winning the Premier League to pretty much, the bottom of the league, Sunderland. They’d just survived relegation that year. So I went from top to bottom purely because I wanted to play and I didn’t want to just sit there and take money. That’s not the player I am. I was forced to see out the season with the reserves, which, you know, it is what it is. But it’s just the fact that they sort of made it out that I was the scapegoat.”

Since leaving Sunderland in 2018, Rodwell has spent time on the books at the aforementioned Blackburn, Sheffield United, and Australian outfits Western Sydney and Sydney FC. Now 33, he is currently a free agent after leaving Sydney in July of this year.