‘I didn’t really feel comfortable’ – Jon Dadi Bodvarsson reflects on his Millwall career

Jon Dadi Bodvarsson has spoken about leaving Millwall and claimed he “didn’t feel good” at the Championship club.

The Icelandic international sealed his exit from the Lions earlier in this transfer window. He signed an 18-month deal with Bolton Wanderers as he was allowed to leave on a free transfer.

Bodvarsson’s only appearance for Millwall this season came as a second-half substitute in the EFL Cup. And he has struggled to explain why things did not work out better with the Lions.

“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.”

“That’s the hard thing about football when that happens to you. 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 also claimed that he struggled to stay match fit the longer he was out of the first-team picture.

“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.”