Rodwell is born to play in the centre of the park and has all the attributes to at the very least be a good standard player in the premier league. His best bet is to get a good run of games alongside Felli and Gibbo and build confidence. Sadly for someone who has got it all he seems to really lack self confidence ( never really recovered from the Derby).

We could still have an international standard player on our hands and to play him massively out of position is accepting that he will not reach his potential! * see similar logic for Ross Barcley.

Not to mention where that would leave our favourites Nev & Hibbo!

He'll play where he plays. Just so long as his leg problems are over, he'll come good.

Haven't we had enough square pegs in round holes recently?

I would send the kid out on a short loan to the championship to be honest, to build up some sharpeness and confidence. Sitting on the bench watching Fellaini and Gibson in the middle is not going to help him much this season.

Also I think he's confused enough about what his best position is, without also putting him at RB..

I agree with the OP and its something I've talked about before. He has all the attributes to be a top class full back and the centre mid/full back crossover is one we're familiar with (Neville still does it). Having grown up a centre back and played centre mid he has the right balance of attacking and defensive skills. I think he should be given games there as he could be a real discovery, solving one of the key problems in our starting XI.

Hibbert for centre forward?

Osman for centre back! He has the physical qualities needed and has a mean tackle in him.

Hasn't got the aggression, engine or heart. Which is why he doesn't already play there. Rodwell won't make it at all at this rate. He strikes me as someone who is looking down and not up. He's afraid of what he's already achieved and deep down wants to curl up in the fettle position and hope it goes away.

I really hope he reads the above and gets pissed off. He could do with getting angry and becoming meaner.

Ian #607 - cracking point about the Derby sending off. Jack is an Evertonian, he must have felt totally cheated in that game. Awful game that was all round.

Jack has played for England at every level, you just don't get that if there is not a real player in there somewhere.

As for right back, tackling will let him down for me.

Rodwell at right back! What next, Howard up front. I mean he scored last season.

Wasn't Hibbert originally a midfielder?

Rodwell looked the part running free for England in his last game, goals in him. Never RB for me. I agree about the confidence thing, for s big lad he seems very gentle and could do with a bit of the Cahill in him..... Then we would have something to be excited about...

Nice original post though...

Big season ahead for Rodwell with key issues needing to be addressed including fitness, confidence and stability with hopefully a run of games in the team which would help the lad banish the trials and tribulations that he has encountered over the past year or two. The last thing that he needs is the prospect of learning a new position, so its a non starter for me. As others have mentioned the only other position I could see him playing is centre half.

Rodwell at right back seems a tad unlikely to me, but not as unlikely as him playing in central defence.

I always said Gerrard (Stevie Me laa/st Steven of Huyten etc) should have played more at right back for England and centre midfielders generally can play that position however, and it's a big however, I don't think Rodwell has any defensive qualities and I take issue with anyone who can see a centre half in him.. He's much too nice and needs to toughen up.

Forget Rodders at the back anywhere.

He was a total disaster playing Centre half in one game a couple of years ago.

He has all the attributes of a box to box MF player not Full back.

At his best he can spray passes, doesnt lose the ball very often and can score goals with his head and from outside the box.

He just needs a consistent run of games to recover his match fitness and sharpness.

Play him at RB?? well why not. Nobody else, including Him and Moyes, seem to have a clue about what his best position is anyway, good to average at everything. A sort of defensive McF.and Bily, got all the skills in there somewhere but in search of a Rodwell shaped hole to ply them

This will be Rodwell's season. I think he has the ability to be a strong midfielder. I don't think he is too nice at all. I reckon he could be the English Khedira or Busquets by the end of the season.

He has had injuries, which have been attributed to growing pains, and he had the misfortune to be part of the least creative midfield in the league for the first half of last season, compounded by the further misfortune of being injured in the second half of the season when there were actually players making runs and creating chances.

In midfield we have good competition and Jack needs to rise to the challenge, but moving him to right back is not the answer.

A better all-round player than Cahill and can do that job in that 5-4-1 setup. He has goals in his box of tricks.

I've got an idea... why don't we play Hibbo at RB?

We're getting really desperate for things to talk about now aren't we?

Roll on the new season!

I don't know, I think it's not a bad idea. Jay, picking up on the shocker he (undoubtedly) had a couple of seasons ago and saw him dropped before injury and completely turning into the crab passer we saw last season, may point to why his growth has been so limited. He does need a run of games and he needs his confidence back. RB might not be right... But having someone who could overlap on th right would be good, obviously.

Why play Rodwell right - back, when we already have one of the best (defensively) rights - backs in the league?

Aiden (631), Hibbert and Osman were a central midfield partnership at youth level.

I'm amazed at the sarcy piss-take reactions to a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Many top players are converted from different positions. In particular, many top full backs were players converted from more forward positions. Evra was a striker in French division 2, Cole started further forward, as did almost every Brazilian full back for about the last 20 years.

Even recently, the likes of Nigel Reo-Coker and Pablo Zabaleta have performed better as full backs at Premier League level than in their original central midfield position.

Maybe it wouldn't work, I think it would, but to take the piss just seems completely ignorant.

Mike, I think Fred Pickering actually started out as a full back before an injury crisis at Blackburn resulted in him moving to centre forward. He scored a hatrick against us and we signed him not long after. His goals per game ratio are as good as anyones. But for the switch he may have remained a full back.

Thanks Mike. I was starting to think that I’d imagined it.

As for the original question, I’d be tentatively in favour of giving Rodwell a run in the right-back slot, though I wouldn’t necessarily expect him to be a success in the position.

I remember a time when playing at fullback for a while was a pretty standard part of the development of prospective central-defenders, which Rodwell potentially still is. The thinking tended to be that A) it gave them valuable game time B) it helped them understand the needs and responsibilities of the positions adjacent to centre back, which would improve their overall team-play when they eventually moved in to the middle and C) if, as expected, they did cock-up, the current centres would usually be on hand to bail them out.

Too good to play full back. I still believe he'll be great either in midfield or a centre half and dictate games

I think it is a great idea.
But he is still not my favourite for the right back position as he needs to toughen up and build more muscle mass, also his agression needs adjusting.
Long term he could be a great defender, but until he starts doing the hard work then Hibbert and Coleman are in front of him .

I am sad to see both Coleman and Rodwell dwindle away, they need game time and I think they need to be loaned out if we are ever going to see them do good here!!!!

They need to step up, if they do not make it this season then I say sell them.
I am sick and tired of having below middle class players in the team, we need quality, not wannabe quality.

Peter #756....on what do you base your belief.....surely not on his past performances.

For me totally over-rated and has never ever done anything in an Everton shirt to justify the £20 million price tag put on him by the media. No pace....No aggression.... and can only pass the ball sideways and backwards

There is nothing I have seen that suggests he will be either great or dicatate any game...Rodwell has been trying to live up to the hype for 4 yrs now and to my mind unfortunately he has failed miserably.

Based on his performance on Wednesday night ( v Tranmere) we wouldn't even get £2 mil never mind £20 mil...the sad thing being that these type of performances are very much the norm rather than the exception from Rodwell...stop believing the hype... it's never going to happen.

Over the years we've had a few of them....Branch,Cadermateri,Jeffers to name a few....all were meant to the the next 'Big Thing'...unfortunately ALL of them failed in a blue shirt mainly due to the unrealistic expectations placed on their shoulders....sadly IMO Rodwell is just another in a very long list.

Don't get me wrong I would love the lad to be a success but there is nothing I have seen in his game that makes me believe he will be anything more than an average
also- ran...

His past performances have shown he has the touch, both feet, athletiscm, temperament and speed to be a top top player. He's also a good geader of the ball and strikes the ball magnificently with both feet.

Last season was hugely disappointing but he's only 20. I think once he stays fit he'll be spot on for us. I think calling him shit is so unfair on a young player coming through the ranks. By the way thought Jeffers was great but he drank away his talent

Felli will play da 'Cahill role' this season with Gibson & Rodwell in midfield.

He needs to go somewhere else for his own good.

All this "low risk play by the numbers" malarky Moyes and his centre half clan advocate won't bring him on - he's going backwards (sideways sometimes).

Peter #766.....I didn't say he was shit I said he was over-rated....and judging by the way you use the word GREAT we obviously have different meanings/standards for the word...but it's your opinion and your more than entitled to voice it.

Personally I believe that labelling someone like young Jack as GREAT before he's even been anywhere near GOOD is part of the problem....too much expectation/pressure.... too quickly !!

As I said I would dearly love to be proved wrong and for him to become the player you think he will... but sadly I don't think that will be the case....only time will tell !!

As for Jeffers......not bad but certainly not GREAT !!

I liked Jeffers as a natural finisher.. I didnt know he 'drank away his talent' though ? Just thought it was a bad move that did him, not the ale, learn something new everyday on here.

Mark...as far as I know it WAS just a bad move/advice from his agent etc that killed his career. I saw him at a concert not so long ago and he didn't display any signs of being a piss-head to me...(unlike that cretin Gascoigne) so unless Peter knows him personally then who knows ??

I agree Jeffers was a decent player but he was by no means a GREAT player....his career since he left us only serves to confirm that...

Rodwell needs to improve to get anywhere near the first team. Did you not watch him at Tranmere? He was woeful. As for playing right back... not a chance.

Nelly - I thought Jeffers was great for us just like joe Parkinson's was great for us but I don't think they were great players. I also don't think rodwell is great but I do believe he had the potential to be GREAT and I think he will be and just hope it's for us.

You didnt say he was shit expressly but implied it by saying his performance the other night meant we'd be lucky to get £2m and that this was his normal level of performance.

If memory serves it's quite inaccurate to claim Jeffers 'failed' in a blue shirt 'mainly due to the unrealistic expectations placed on [his] shoulders', as I recall he'd done rather well for us, hence Arsenal buying him.

Dennis...he did OK but by no means fulfilled the hype (unrealistic expectation !!) that was placed upon him when he first broke into the 1st team....don't pretend that at the time you couldn't believe the money that Arsenal offered....that's why we snatched their hand off

EVERY Evertonian I know was shocked at the price Arsenal paid...don't say you were any different.

Dennis... he did OK but by no means fulfilled the hype (unrealistic expectation!!) that was placed upon him when he first broke into the 1st team. Don't pretend that at the time you couldn't believe the money that Arsenal offered... that's why we snatched their hand off.

EVERY Evertonian I know was shocked at the price Arsenal paid... don't say you were any different.

Brian Waring, I'll have a pint of what you're on!

As for the derby sending off, how can anyone use that as an excuse? If that affects him then he shouldn't be playing the game. Cahill's first game for us ended with him scoring the match winner and then being red carded for fuck all. He had the spirit to put that behind him and came back even stronger. Strength in adversity makes a player, not moping and feeling sorry for yourself like Anichebe.

And I'm glad to see some Evertonians are recognising our weak spot: Right back. Well Sharpy started out as a defender and Thierry Henry was a winger before Wenger switched him so maybe for Rodders, a change is as good as a rest and he couldn't be any worse than the old arse who masquerades as a PL player who seems fireproof in that position.

Never rated Rodwell. Never. Personally I think trying him at RB is worth a go. He has shown decent pace and control so maybe he could adapt. Many players have changed position and become better for it. As it stands now Jack is on his way to being a squad player and no more. I honestly don't see why he is so highly rated. And we need somebody at RB if Moyes isn't willing to play Seamus there. Nothing wrong with a bit of experimentation.

Whilst I believe Rodwell has the talent and ability, to me the problem with him was summed up perfectly by a contributor on here a while back. I can't remember who, so apologies that I cant credit it.

"Jack Rodwell – Too much Birkdale, not enough Kirkdale".