Sunderland manager David Moyes reveals midfielder Jack Rodwell will be the club’s highest earner in the Championship after avoiding a 40 per cent pay cut
The 26-year-old has failed to impress at the Black Cats since he made he made the switch from Manchester City to the Stadium of Light in 2014
FLOP Jack Rodwell is set to be Sunderland’s highest-earner in the Championship - after escaping a 40 per cent pay cut.
David Moyes has revealed that the injury-prone midfielder is the ONLY member of his squad not to have a relegation wage-reduction clause written into his contract.
So Rodwell, who has won just one of his 42 league starts for the Black Cats, will continue earning £60,000-a-week in the second tier next term.
The ex-England international, 26, moved to the Stadium of Light from Manchester City in a £10.25million deal in August 2014.
At the time, Rodwell’s signing was seen as something of a coup for Sunderland, who were then managed by Gus Poyet, with Lee Congerton the sporting director.
But it has now emerged that in order to persuade the former Everton starlet to sign for Sunderland, the 40 per cent pay-cut clause the club usually insist on was waived.
And that is something of an embarrassment for the Black Cats given Rodwell’s time on Wearside has so far been a failure.
Quizzed over the wage reductions written into his players’ contracts, boss Moyes said: “I believe there is one player who has not but I think the rest are.
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“I believe it is all 40 per cent.”
Then asked if that was Rodwell, Moyes replied: “Yes.”
Moyes has also been angered by the details of Jermain Defoe’s contract.
When the England striker joined the Black Cats on a three-and-a-half-year deal from Toronto in January 2015, it was written into his contract that he could leave on a free should they go down.
Club chiefs then failed to remove that clause when Defoe, 34, penned a one-year extension last summer, a month before Moyes took charge.
And the Black Cats manager admitted: “I am very surprised.
“I would hope if I was a manager, I would not have had a contract which would have allowed somebody to leave in that situation.
“What price might we have got for Jermain if we had gone down, albeit at his age?
“There would have been a decent price on Jermain’s head and we have not got that.”
Moyes, though, does not regret not cashing in on Defoe in January, when West Ham bid £6million.
The Scot added: “The money we were offered was not enough to turn our heads."