Man City’s Rod well on his way to Sunderland

Sport360 staff 05:38 05/08/2014
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  • Marginalised: Jack Rodwell has found first-team football hard to come by at City.

    Sunderland appeared one step closer to signing Manchester City’s Jack Rodwell after he was yester­day pictured at the club’s training ground.

    The 23-year-old midfielder is surplus to requirements at City, where he has failed to make a mark during two injury-blighted seasons, and the Black Cats have not been deterred by a £10million (Dh61.9m) asking price.

    Rodwell was filmed at Sunder­land’s Academy of Light facility, where he was thought to be discuss­ing personal terms on a deal that should go ahead as soon as he pass­es a medical.

    Rodwell was hot property when City signed him from Everton for £12m (Dh74.3m) in August 2012, the result of some impressive all-action displays in the Toffees engine room. But he found the star-studded City dressing room an alto­gether tougher challenge and was not helped by fitness struggles at key times.

    Having made his England debut against Spain during the peak of his Everton days in 2011, Rodwell largely fell out of the international picture due to his lack of game time at the Etihad – thought he was recalled to play a cameo in the glamour friendly draw against Bra­zil last summer.

    Rodwell has started just seven Premier League matches during his time at City, scoring his only two goals during a 3-2 home defeat to Norwich.

    Meanwhile, Samir Nasri has made a decision about his interna­tional future and dropped a strong hint that he has played his last game for France.

    The City midfielder was left out of France’s squad for the World Cup finals in Brazil despite playing a major role in his club’s Premier League title.

    Nasri is not yet ready to make his decision public, saying: “I made it a while ago but I will announce it when the time is right.”

    But it appears certain the 27-year-old will announce his in­ternational retirement.

    He said: “With the national team I didn’t win anything. So it’s more easy to take this decision than if we’d just won something. When you play for a big club, and you play lots of games, it’s easy to come to this decision.”

    Nasri was labelled a disrup­tive influence after national coach Didier Deschamps explained his controversial World Cup omission by claiming: “I built the best squad, I did not pick the 23 best French players.”

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