Former defender Gary Cahill reflects on his time at Bolton Wanderers

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Former Wanderers defender Gary Cahill has called his time at the UniBol “fantastic”.

Cahill joined the Whites from Aston Villa back in January 2008 and went on to make 147 appearances during a four-year spell with the club.

The defender’s consistent form at Wanderers earned him his first England call-up in the summer of 2009 and he went on to make his international debut the following year.

Cahill went on to represent his country 61 times in total and was called up for all four major tournaments between 2012 and 2018.

He left Wanderers to join Chelsea, where he won two Premier League titles and also had success in Europe.

Cahill has fond memories of his time with Wanderers and admits he was keen to repay their faith on his final game - a trip to Goodison Park.

The defender scored the winning goal in a 2-1 victory against the Toffees, firing home from a tight angle.

"My last game for Bolton was Everton away,” he told FourFourTwo. “Even though I'd got my big move, my team-mates and manager had a lot of faith in me and I wanted to repay that.

"It worked out well. My time at Bolton was fantastic for me, to play week in, week out in the Premier League and get into the England fold.”

Cahill is now at Bournemouth, who are closing in on promotion back to the Premier League under Scott Parker.

The Cherries are currently second in the table - eight points behind leaders Fulham with 10 games still to play.

He added: "Of course I would love a great ending now - it'd be a fantastic way to finish if we went up.

"The Championship is a very tough league to get out of, but if we go into these next couple of months in the right frame of mind, then why can't we finish in a great way?"

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He was a raw talent when Megson signed him - a bit rash and error prone - but he learnt a lot having Sam Ricketts alongside him and it still galls me that when he finally became the real deal we sold him - for what I felt was well below market value.

I remember after Bolton and Chelsea agreed the  fee or rather Bolton bent over for Abramovic, Cahill and his agent spent about a fortnight haggling for bigger wages before he would sign.Some Chelsea fans were saying forget the greedy sod and just sign another centre half.

Great player for us and he also popped up with a few goals as well. We did sell him far too cheaply though as Lusty said.

Always liked Cahill.

Wasn’t he valued at around £21 million?