Moyes tells Jack – time to man up
EVEN as he rid himself of the most unwanted record in football, things did not go quite as Jack Rodwell would have wanted.
A Premier League victory at last in his 38th start for Sunderland was not enough to save him from the drug-testers or the hamstring injury which curtailed his afternoon.
Yet there was no disguising the delight among his team-mates for a player who had endured nearly a season’s worth of games without a win.
Fellow midfielder Seb Larsson smiled when Rodwell’s curse was mentioned. “We’ll go on a run of winning with him now,” he said.
Curse or no curse, Sunderland boss David Moyes said he had challenged the 25-yearold to make the step up from bit-part to impact player.
Moyes said: “Today I said to him, ‘It’s about time you started to take a grip of games. You’re going to have to stand up. You’re not a boy any more. Get over it, start getting on it. Isn’t it time you started to show you are a top player?’
“I wasn’t losing patience with him, but I know Jack and I felt it was about time to say it. This was a big game for us and we knew what we were going to have to deal with. I told Jack, ‘When you’re on the ball, are you going to make some passes?’
“We told him to make sure he kept getting the ball and kept trying to make us play. We want him to take more responsibility and help make us play. He did that today.”
It was Moyes who gave Rodwell his
C PALACE SUNDERLAND
first-team debut as a 17-year-old at Everton and he still sees the same natural ability.
“Jack can still achieve his potential. He’s got a different body now to do it,” said Moyes. “When he was young he had great energy. He’s still got great energy but he is getting older so he has to know what to do with it.
“He has had terrible problems with injuries and I just hope he hasn’t got a serious hamstring injury.”
Rodwell was one of 11 Sunderland players who took control of this amazing game. By contrast, Palace were shackled by a fear of playing at home, especially the five minutes before half-time when a tight game turned into a landslide. Midfielder James McArthur, a rare bright light amid the gloom, was brutally frank. “We need to lift ourselves fast – it wasn’t acceptable,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter if it was a bad performance, a bad five minutes, whatever. We need to demand more from each other.” MOYES: Challenge
CRYSTAL PALACE (3-4-3):