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Wayne Routledge
Personal information
Full name	Wayne Neville Routledge
Date of birth	7 January 1985 (1985-01-07) (age 24)
Place of birth	Sidcup, England
Height	5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)
Playing position	Right winger/Second Striker
Club information
Current club	Queens Park Rangers
Number	7
Senior career1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
2001–2005 2005–2008 2006 2006–2007 2008–2009 2008–2009 2009–	Crystal Palace Tottenham Hotspur → Portsmouth (loan) → Fulham (loan) Aston Villa → Cardiff City (loan) Queens Park Rangers	110 (11) 005 0(0) 013 0(0) 024 0(0) 002 0(0) 009 0(2) 031 0(3)
National team2
2004–2007	England U21	012 0(1)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 21 October 2009. 2 National team caps and goals correct as of 21:35, 21 August 2007 (UTC). * Appearances (Goals)

Wayne Neville Routledge (born 7 January 1985 in Sidcup, Greater London) is an English footballer, who currently plays for Queens Park Rangers. He plays as a midfielder predominantly on the right wing but can also play on the left. He has represented England at under-16, under-19 and under-21 level.

Contents 1 Football career 1.1 Crystal Palace 1.2 Tottenham 1.3 Aston Villa 1.4 Cardiff City 1.5 Queens Park Rangers 2 Club career statistics 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Football career

[edit] Crystal Palace

Routledge began his career at Crystal Palace, making his starting debut against Wolverhampton Wanderers at the age of 17 in September 2002, and scoring after just one minute on the field. He made his Palace debut in October 2001 in a 1–0 home defeat by West Bromwich Albion, aged only 16. He was England's second ever player to score at the new Wembley Stadium.

He was an important member of the side which won promotion to the Premiership via the play-offs in 2003-04, and he was ever present as Palace battled for their Premiership place in 2004-05 and, although they just failed to avoid the drop, Routledge proved to be an exciting talent on the wing, chipping in with an impressive 8 assists. He was not to leave the top flight, though. After rejecting a contract with the side that developed him as a youngster in January, Spurs snapped him up on 1 July 2005.^[1] The clubs could not come to an agreement over a fee for Routledge so the transfer went to a tribunal. There it was agreed that Palace would receive an initial £1.25m, rising to £2m depending upon appearances in future.

[edit] Tottenham

After impressing in the pre-season, His career at White Hart Lane started slowly as he unfortunately suffered a broken foot on his league debut for the club, but on 12 December 2005 he made his return as a substitute in only his second game for Spurs against Portsmouth.

He was loaned to Portsmouth in the January 2006 transfer window^[2] and made 13 appearances for them before returning to Spurs at the season's end. Routledge impressed Portsmouth boss Harry Redknapp in a home game against Bolton Wanderers in March 2006, when, with Bolton 1–0 ahead with only three minutes left to play, Routledge - who had only just come on as a substitute - outpaced three Bolton players into the penalty box to connect with a long pass from Matthew Taylor and set Azar Karadas up for a spectacular volley which levelled the match and ultimately earned relegation-threatened Portsmouth a crucial 1–1 draw, a result that began a run of good late season form for them.

After impressing in the pre-season again, he was once again loaned out on a year deal to Fulham as part of the deal that brought Steed Malbranque to Tottenham.^[3] This was also partly due to the emergence of Aaron Lennon at both club and international level.

His Fulham bow came as a 34th minute replacement for injury victim Jimmy Bullard in a 2–1 victory at Newcastle United. He went on to create two goals in the final ten minutes of the match. He is most remembered during his time at Fulham for his winning goal in a thrilling FA Cup tie against Leicester City in January 2007, which ended 4-3 to Fulham.^[4]

[edit] Aston Villa

On 30 January 2008 Routledge joined Aston Villa on an 18 month contract in a deal worth £1.25 million. He scored the second goal in his reserve debut in a 6–0 away win at Derby County, played at Burton Albion's ground^[5]. He made his first-team debut on 5 April 2008 coming on as a late substitute for Stiliyan Petrov in the 86th minute in a 4–0 win against Bolton.

On 10 July 2008, Routledge was the subject of a scathing verbal attack from Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan. Jordan was giving an interview about now ex-Palace midfielder John Bostock, during which he used Routledge as an example of why he believed the youth player should not leave Palace to join Tottenham.

"When Spurs came knocking I told Wayne to stay and learn his trade at Palace, but he went, he grabbed the money, and now he's at Villa not getting in the first team, just like he didn't get in the Spurs team, just like he didn't get in the Portsmouth team and just like he didn't get in the Fulham team."^[6]

[edit] Cardiff City

In November 2008 after making just one league appearance for Aston Villa so far during the season, Routledge was allowed to join Football League Championship side Cardiff City on a two-month loan deal after the club suffered a double injury blow when both Joe Ledley and Peter Whittingham were ruled out for one and three months respectively.^[7] He made his debut for the club on 22 November in a 2-1 defeat to Plymouth Argyle during which he supplied the through pass for Michael Chopra to score Cardiff's only goal of the game.^[8] He scored his first goal for the club in just his second game when he found the net against Reading during a 2-2 draw on 25 November.^[9] He soon found the net for a second time, this time scoring Cardiff's second goal in the 2-2 draw at Burnley.^[10]

In the lead up to the opening of the January transfer window it was revealed that Cardiff had offered a fee of around £300,000 in order to sign Routledge on a permanent deal. The transfer was expected to be completed prior to the clubs FA Cup third round match against Reading on 3 January, but the day before Routledge rejected the deal and was subsequently recalled from his loan spell.^[11][12]

[edit] Queens Park Rangers

On the same day that his loan spell at Cardiff was terminated, Routledge signed a 3 and a half year deal at rival Championship side Queens Park Rangers for a fee of £600,000,^[13] saying that he was "thrilled" to join.^[14] Routledge made his debut in a 1-1 draw with Coventry City on 10 January. Routledge then scored in his very next game against Derby County on Nigel Clough's first game in charge, and his first away game for QPR.

His performance further improved in a Carling Cup tie against Exeter on 11 August 2009, when Routledge scored a second half hat trick.^[15] He also scored a late goal versus Accrington Stanley F.C. to seal a second round Carling Cup victory.

[edit] Club career statistics

(correct as of 6 May 2009)

Club	Season	League			Cup[16]			Europe			Play-Offs			Total
		Apps	Goals	Assists	Apps	Goals	Assists	Apps	Goals	Assists	Apps	Goals	Assists	Apps	Goals	Assists
Crystal Palace	2001–02	2	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	0	0
	2002–03	26	4	0	3	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	29	4	0
	2003–04	44	6	4	5	0	0	-	-	-	3	0	0	52	6	4
	2004–05	38	1	9	2	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	40	1	9
Tottenham	2005–06	3	0	0	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	3	0	0
Portsmouth (loan)	2005–06	13	0	3	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	13	0	3
Fulham (loan)	2006–07	24	0	1	4	1	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	28	1	1
Tottenham	2007-08	2	0	0	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	0	0
Aston Villa	2007-08	1	0	0	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	0	0
	2008-09	1	0	0	1	0	0	3	0	0	-	-	-	5	0	0
Cardiff City (loan)	2008-09	9	2	5	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	9	2	5
Q.P.R.	2008-09	19	1	4	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	19	1	4
Career totals		186	14	25	15	1	1	3	0	0	3	0	0	204	15	27

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Wayne Routledge career stats at Soccerbase
• Photos and stats at sporting-heroes.net
• Profile at 4thegame.com
• Profile at premierleague.com
• Wayne Routledge Official Website at Icons.com

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