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POLISH defender Pawel Olkowski arrives at Wanderers this summer on a mission to rebuild and reboot a career which stalled inexplicably in the last 12 months.
Things were running smoothly for the right-back in Cologne up until the start of last season, when he paid a heavy price for the club’s struggles in Bundesliga.
FC Koln somehow plummeted from a fifth-placed finish in 2016/17 and European qualification for the first time in 25 years to a nightmarish start in which they failed to win a single one of their first 17 league games and were effectively relegated before the winter break.
The Pole had been a regular under head coach Peter Stoger but found himself playing second team football by the time he was replaced by Stefan Ruthenbeck in December. The new coach restored him to the team for his first two games – including a narrow defeat at Bayern Munich – but he managed just two more appearances, in the Europa League and German Cup.
FC Koln finished bottom of the pile, relegated for the sixth time in two decades, but remarkably the majority of its squad was retained. Not so Olkowski, who had also watched his chances of grabbing a place in Poland’s World Cup squad go up in smoke.
Phil Parkinson said on the defender’s arrival that he had turned down offers from Germany and Italy to move to the Macron Stadium but reports in Poland suggest Lech Poznan and Legia Warsaw were at the head of the queue to take him back home before Wanderers came calling.
Early reports from the training ground are good. Olkowski dived right into the rigorous physical tests on his first visit to Lostock and has impressed staff with his attitude.
Olkowski’s representative, Marcin Michalak, who works for the INNfootball Agency was quoted in the Polish sports newspaper, Prezeglad Sportowy, as saying: “Pawel really wanted to go to Britain. After a difficult season in the Bundesliga it was not easy to find the right place for him but we succeeded and we are very pleased with this fact.
“The club has ambitions. The plan assumes a return to the Premier League over the next two seasons.
“The coach wanted to bring Pawel as a reinforcement of the defensive line.
“We all hope that his career will return to the right track. In the future he can still think about representing his country.”
There has been no shortage of off-the-field distraction for Wanderers in the last week but Olkowski’s signing did give a timely boost to morale.
If Parkinson can tap into the pedigree of a player with 66 top flight games under his belt in Germany and 13 caps for his country, then Olkowski might well get his wish of a return to the international fold.
Poland’s poor World Cup showing resulted in the sacking of Adam Nawalka, who will vacate his position at the end of this month to allow the national team to head in a “different direction”.
Should Olkowski get some early games under his belt in the Championship there is sufficient attention paid to the division back home thanks to the exploits of Hull City playmaker Kamil Grosicki.
Poles have enjoyed mixed fortunes at Bolton down the years. Tad Nowak blazed a trail in the late seventies, becoming the first overseas player to ply his trade at the club and earning a cult hero status despite featuring rather sparingly in the days of Ian Greaves and Stan Anderson.
Striker Grzegorz Rasiak and Ebi Smolarek had brief loan spells in 2008 under Gary Megson – neither exactly setting the pulses racing.
Jaroslav Fojut was a hulking centre-half who made his way through the Bolton academy set-up to earn a handful of first team appearances under Sam Allardyce and Sammy Lee but his compatriots Błażej Augustyn and Przemysław Kazimierczak failed to get the same opportunities.
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/16352150.pawel-olkowski-looks-to-erase-poor-year-with-fc-koln-at-bolton/?ref=mr&lp=2
Things were running smoothly for the right-back in Cologne up until the start of last season, when he paid a heavy price for the club’s struggles in Bundesliga.
FC Koln somehow plummeted from a fifth-placed finish in 2016/17 and European qualification for the first time in 25 years to a nightmarish start in which they failed to win a single one of their first 17 league games and were effectively relegated before the winter break.
The Pole had been a regular under head coach Peter Stoger but found himself playing second team football by the time he was replaced by Stefan Ruthenbeck in December. The new coach restored him to the team for his first two games – including a narrow defeat at Bayern Munich – but he managed just two more appearances, in the Europa League and German Cup.
FC Koln finished bottom of the pile, relegated for the sixth time in two decades, but remarkably the majority of its squad was retained. Not so Olkowski, who had also watched his chances of grabbing a place in Poland’s World Cup squad go up in smoke.
Phil Parkinson said on the defender’s arrival that he had turned down offers from Germany and Italy to move to the Macron Stadium but reports in Poland suggest Lech Poznan and Legia Warsaw were at the head of the queue to take him back home before Wanderers came calling.
Early reports from the training ground are good. Olkowski dived right into the rigorous physical tests on his first visit to Lostock and has impressed staff with his attitude.
Olkowski’s representative, Marcin Michalak, who works for the INNfootball Agency was quoted in the Polish sports newspaper, Prezeglad Sportowy, as saying: “Pawel really wanted to go to Britain. After a difficult season in the Bundesliga it was not easy to find the right place for him but we succeeded and we are very pleased with this fact.
“The club has ambitions. The plan assumes a return to the Premier League over the next two seasons.
“The coach wanted to bring Pawel as a reinforcement of the defensive line.
“We all hope that his career will return to the right track. In the future he can still think about representing his country.”
There has been no shortage of off-the-field distraction for Wanderers in the last week but Olkowski’s signing did give a timely boost to morale.
If Parkinson can tap into the pedigree of a player with 66 top flight games under his belt in Germany and 13 caps for his country, then Olkowski might well get his wish of a return to the international fold.
Poland’s poor World Cup showing resulted in the sacking of Adam Nawalka, who will vacate his position at the end of this month to allow the national team to head in a “different direction”.
Should Olkowski get some early games under his belt in the Championship there is sufficient attention paid to the division back home thanks to the exploits of Hull City playmaker Kamil Grosicki.
Poles have enjoyed mixed fortunes at Bolton down the years. Tad Nowak blazed a trail in the late seventies, becoming the first overseas player to ply his trade at the club and earning a cult hero status despite featuring rather sparingly in the days of Ian Greaves and Stan Anderson.
Striker Grzegorz Rasiak and Ebi Smolarek had brief loan spells in 2008 under Gary Megson – neither exactly setting the pulses racing.
Jaroslav Fojut was a hulking centre-half who made his way through the Bolton academy set-up to earn a handful of first team appearances under Sam Allardyce and Sammy Lee but his compatriots Błażej Augustyn and Przemysław Kazimierczak failed to get the same opportunities.
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/16352150.pawel-olkowski-looks-to-erase-poor-year-with-fc-koln-at-bolton/?ref=mr&lp=2