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Jon Dadi Bodvarsson believes he can get his football career going again at Bolton Wanderers after an ‘uncomfortable’ spell at Millwall.
The former Wolves and Reading striker signed an 18-month deal at the UniBol last week, making his debut as a substitute in last Saturday’s 1-0 win at Shrewsbury Town.
That had been his first club game since August, when he turned out for the Lions in a Carabao Cup game against Cambridge United.
The Icelander had signed for Millwall for a reported £700,000 fee in July 2019 but admits he never felt a good fit for the London club.
“It’s hard to put one thing into it,” he told The Bolton News. “It was just a combination of a couple of things, really.
“I think sometimes you come into an environment or a football club where things just don’t pan out or work out. Maybe you don’t feel quite at home. That’s what I was struggling with a bit there.
“The team-mates were fantastic, the managers were good as well, it was just something was missing.
“I didn’t really feel comfortable or good there, and obviously if you don’t feel good, you’re not going to play well.”
Bodvarsson was regularly used as a substitute in the Championship last season, making 25 of his 38 league appearances from the bench and scoring just once, against QPR.
Once those appearances dried up, the striker knew he had to move on from The Den, “That’s the hard thing about football when that happens to you,” he said, of his time out of the Millwall team. “I don’t wish that upon anyone because the longer it takes, it affects you mentally and I’ll admit, there was a time when I was thinking ‘what am I doing here?’.
“It had been three months and I hadn’t played a game, so I was desperate to go somewhere in January and thankfully Bolton came into the picture and I was straightway, yes, get me here.”
Bodvarsson tried to keep up his fitness during his time in exile at Millwall but says his passion for playing club football began to fade, the longer he was out of the side.
“I’ll admit there were times where it was just up to me,” he said. “I had to concentrate on what I could control and that was to try and stay as fit as possible, train extra, go to the gym a bit more than usual.
“These small things like diet and sleep, all of these things, that’s what you can control and that’s what I focused on. But I’ll admit for such a long time there was days where I was just really mentally not up there and I think that’s just human nature in us.
“Fitness-wise I feel like I’m not really far off it, I think it was just mainly the game fitness, but training with the lads and everything, I don’t feel I’m far off it now.”
Despite struggling to get into Gary Rowett’s side, Bodvarsson passed up opportunities to move to League One in the summer, hoping to prolong his time in the Championship. Bolton’s interest, which materialised in January as they looked to add more flexibility to their front line, proved too difficult to resist.
“I think obviously being in League One and playing in the Championship for the last five and a half years, I’ll admit I hesitated a bit because you’re going a step down a level,” he said.
“But that was just the reality of my situation at the time. I didn’t really have a lot of options to choose from and I know Bolton, they want to play good football, they’re a famous club and they’re ambitious. I felt like it’s a win-win really, let’s go for it.”
On first impressions, Bodvarsson is impressed with the set-up at Wanderers, and has knitted in well with a club that has a rich history of Icelandic players.
He was also attracted by Ian Evatt’s expansive playing style, which has been tweaked slightly in recent weeks with great effect after an influx of January signings.
“I love the idea of the football Bolton play,” he said. “The manager is very ambitious and has meetings with the centre forwards and midfielders, just to talk for 10 minutes about what can we do better and he goes through clips.
“He is a possession-based manager in a good way and also try to be direct as well at the same time. I think as well, in the last two games, not that I was before those two games, it seems like the team has become a bit more disciplined defensively which was maybe lacking.
“That’s also good so now it’s maybe I think just a matter of being more balanced, defensively as well, along with being quite an attacking good team.”
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