EXCLUSIVE: Simon Grayson concedes Jack Rodwell 'did not represent Sunderland well'

Simon Grayson caused a stir earlier this month by criticising Sunderland fans for 'scapegoating' Jack Rodwell. We challenged him on that.

Simon Grayson has told Sunderland Nation that Jack Rodwell ‘did not represent the club well’ after his controversial ‘scapegoat’ comments.

Earlier this month, Grayson angered Sunderland fans when he claimed they ‘scapegoated’ Rodwell because of how much he was earning at the time.

However, we challenged the former Black Cats boss on those comments, and while he stood by them, he also conceded that Rodwell gave precious little to Sunderland.

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“Jack was a nice lad to be fair,” Grayson exclusively told Sunderland Nation via Instant Casinos. “He came into work, he did his work. Sometimes you just get players that you cannot get going through and he did suffer a lot of the injuries.

“When I said the fans used him as a scapegoat, that was basically because he was the only one that didn't take the reduction in his salary. I thought that that was an easy cop out for supporters to have a go at the player.

“I get it didn't represent the club well in terms of how we played, the number of games that he played, but that was the basic line that was I going down.

“I've said it in a Q&A and I've said it since, that how many people would take a voluntary 50% wage reduction in their lives? Not one hand went up in the Q&A I did at Sunderland at the time.

“I get it's frustrating because people are not seeing the just rewards from the hard-earned money that some of the supporters were paying to see somebody not fulfil a potential.

Rodwell was signed by Sunderland for £10million and made just67 appearances in four years on Wearside.

His once promising career has just nosedived since, with him going on to even shorter spells with Blackburn, Sheffield United, and Western Sydney Wanderers in the A-League.

He is still in Australia, playing for Sydney FC at the age of 32, and he has become a bit of a poster child for wasted potential.

“I'll tell you something, the one person that'll have the biggest regret in all this will be Jack Rodwell.

“He has never fulfilled his potential of a player that when he was at Manchester City he should have gone on to and the career he should have had because he was an exceptional talent.

"And whether it's through misfortune of injuries or desire attitude, I can't really comment on that too much because one, I didn't work with him long enough,

“But also, only he will know how much he gave to being a professional footballer. That comes from within the player.”

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