Having been overlooked by Giovanni Trapattoni for this week's game in Cardiff, Keith Andrews has revealed that nobody from Bolton Wanderers even spoke to him directly before he was loaned out last week to Brighton for the coming season.
The 32-year-old Dubliner says that the move came “as a bit of a bolt from the blue” given that he had played 90 minutes in a league game the previous weekend for Bolton the previous weekend and come on against Shrewsbury in the League Cup only two nights earlier. He believed he was firmly in manager Dougie Freedman’s plans for the campaign even after the arrival of Jay Spearing from Liverpool but suddenly discovered otherwise.
“Up until now I have not spoken to anyone at Bolton Wanderers,” he told BBC local radio in the wake of his Brighton debut. “I played on Tuesday and trained Thursday but I started getting a few phone calls that evening. From there it happened very quickly and I arrived in Brighton on Friday evening.
“It was a decision they (Bolton) made and they obviously made it very clear I wasn’t wanted at the football club but nobody really had the decency to even phone me as I was leaving.
“I think I deserve a little bit more respect than that, I suppose. I always felt I’d done things well at that club, been very professional and treated people like I like to be treated. To end on that note was a bit sour but you can’t be surprised by anything in football.”
Though he insists he is excited by the challenge he faces at Brighton now, the manner of his exit from Bolton comes as another blow to the midfielder who has been rocked by quite a few since having been one of the few Irish players to emerge from the European Champions in Poland last summer with any real credit.
Andrews had options at the time he signed for Bolton and saw the move as a good one but the latter part of his season was wrecked by injury which he struggled to overcome.
He had anticipated being involved regularly again with them this season and battling to regain his place in the Ireland set up with James McCarthy having established himself in the team while the likes of Jeff Hendrick and David Meyler have started to become regulars in Trapattoni’s squad.
“I have still got a huge appetite for the game,” he says, “and I feel I can have a big impact here but I don’t have anything to prove to Bolton. I just have things to prove to myself and want to prolong my career for as long as possible and play at the highest level I can for as long as I can.”
