Robbie Savage

Robert William Savage (born 18 October 1974) is a Welsh former professional footballer who played as a midfielder, now a football pundit and director of football at club Macclesfield.

During his career he played predominantly as a midfielder, starting off as a youth player with Manchester United before joining Crewe Alexandra when released by the Old Trafford club.

He became a regular for Leicester City in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and performed a similar role for Birmingham City and Blackburn Rovers.

He played in the FA Youth Cup winning team of 1992, and was later given a professional contract, but never played a first-team game for the club and signed for Crewe Alexandra in 1994.

He switched into midfield early in his time at Crewe and proved himself as a competent young player, helping them reach the Division Two play-offs in his first two seasons at the club; a remarkable feat for a newly promoted club who had only played at this level twice in the previous 30 years.

Crewe then made it third time lucky by sealing promotion via the play-offs in 1997.

It was the first time that Crewe had reached the second tier of the English football league system, but shortly after helping Crewe win promotion, Savage handed in a transfer request to manager Dario Gradi.

Savage was transferred to Premier League side Leicester City managed by Martin O'Neill, for a fee of £400,000, in July 1997.

Savage spent five years at Leicester, where he made his name as a reliable, competitive and fiery midfielder.

In 1999, Leicester reached the League Cup final against Tottenham Hotspur.

In a controversial incident, Savage made a poor tackle on Tottenham's Justin Edinburgh who retaliated by swinging his arm out.

Contact was minimal, but Savage fell to the ground.

Edinburgh was sent off for raising his arms, and although Tottenham went on to win the final, many Spurs fans still hold a grudge against Savage for the incident to this day.

However, a year later Savage reached the League Cup final again, this time winning 2–1 against Tranmere Rovers.

When Leicester were relegated from the Premiership at the end of the 2001–02 season he transferred to newly promoted Birmingham City for a fee of £1.25 million, signing a three-year contract.

He won the club's Player of the Year award in 2003.

At the beginning of January 2005 he submitted a written request for a transfer, allegedly wishing to be nearer his ailing parents in Wrexham.

On 19 January, he completed a move to Blackburn Rovers for a fee of £3 million, having scored 11 goals in 82 league games for Birmingham.

In his first five months as a Blackburn player, Savage helped his new club to Premier League safety and reached the FA Cup Semi-final, a 3–0 loss to Arsenal in his homeland's Millennium Stadium.

His feud with Toshack and the Welsh FA continued long into the 2005–06 season as Savage insisted he retired from international football only because Toshack told him he was not good enough to play for Wales.

In 2005–06, Savage was a regular performer for Blackburn, making 42 appearances and scoring once, against former club Birmingham.

The following season, he scored against Salzburg and Wisła Kraków in Rovers' UEFA Cup campaign, but his season was cut short by a broken leg in January, which kept him out for the rest of the season.

In March, Savage called an end to his international career after new manager John Toshack dropped him for a World Cup 2006 qualifying game against Austria.

During the 2007–08 season, Savage endured further problems with his knee, suffering a knock in the 2–1 win at Spurs after being caught by Robbie Keane.

Surgery was required which kept him out of the starting lineup for six weeks.

Following the return of Steven Reid to the Rovers starting lineup and some good form by David Dunn, he found it harder to get into the starting XI.

Savage was well liked by the Blackburn fans and was given a standing ovation by a near capacity ground by the Rovers fans when he returned with Derby.

In 2008, he joined Derby County; after a short loan spell with Brighton & Hove Albion later that year, he returned to captain Derby, with whom he finished his playing career.

He also played for the Wales national team on 39 occasions.

He is now a pundit for the BBC and regularly presents 606 on BBC Radio 5 Live on Sunday evenings.

He also co-presents Early Kick Off on BT Sport.

Born in Wrexham, Savage started his playing career with local sides Brickfield Rangers and Lex XI.

When he finished school, he joined Manchester United as a trainee and originally played as a striker.

On 9 January 2008, Savage joined Derby County for a fee of £1.5 million on a two-and-a-half-year contract, and later revealed that he had taken a pay cut to join Derby in his search for first-team football and had rejected a move to Sunderland because he felt Derby had wanted him more.

As the number 8 shirt, which he had worn at previous clubs, was already allocated to then-captain Matthew Oakley, he took the number 44 shirt because the numbers add up to 8.

He was appointed the new Derby captain after Oakley was sold to Leicester, and he skippered the Derby side in his first match, a 1–0 home defeat to Wigan Athletic.

Rumours of Savage leaving Derby came in July 2008 when he missed out on every pre-season match.

In August, Leicester City chairman Milan Mandaric declared an interest in Savage, which was dismissed by Derby.

Paul Jewell repeatedly left Savage out of the team, after Derby's poor start to the 2008–2009 season, and he was replaced as captain by Alan Stubbs.

It was revealed by then Sunderland manager Roy Keane in his 2014 autobiography, that he had been given permission by Blackburn to sign Savage during the end of his time at Blackburn; however he was put off by Savage's "wazzupp" voicemail, with Keane describing his thoughts after hearing this as "I can't be fucking signing that".