Apologies for the pun. Sierre Leone international midfielder, Medo Kamara has left the club. Read on for more info…
Former fan favourite, Medo Kamara has had his contract cancelled by mutual request. He was reportedly one of our biggest earners which is unsurprising given his CV prior to joining Bolton.
However, since Neil Lennon arrived in October 2014, he had been completely exiled from the team. It is unclear as to why as he had been a regular under Lennon’s predecessor Dougie Freedman and popular amongst fans.
That said, as we were playing poorly before, Medo did take a fair bit of stick with many fans saying that his playing style was too negative- constantly passing the ball backwards.
Lennon did say that all players would be given a clean slate upon his arrival though, and it was thought that Lennon, having been a battling midfielder himself back in the day, would take to the former Partizan man and bring the best out of him. However, he didn’t seem to take to him, nor Spearing and seemed to favour Neil Danns in that deeper role.
In fact, Kamara didn’t feature in a single competitive game under Lennon, with his last game in a Bolton shirt being in …wait for it… September 2014 against Chelsea. Remember that game? When Dougie Freedman kept talking about ‘Mr Mourinho’ and we played reasonably well and thought we were on our way back up and all that? Yeah, me too. Just.
I find Kamara’s fall from grace really disappointing though, as when he first arrived he stirred up excitement with his combative style of play. He was perhaps a bit of a surprising signing, given that we already had Jay Spearing and Keith Andrews who operate in a similar role. However, he established himself as a regular and really endeared himself to fans. He was also handy with the ball too- his long shots were a real highlight.
During pre-season, after he returned from a loan spell at Maccabi Haifa, I thought there was hope for Kamara to return to the first team fold. He featured for the first team during pre-season. However, from watching those training videos, (which I know I’m obsessed with) I really did get the impression that his face wasn’t fitting with Lennon. Lennon never really seemed convinced by him from what I saw and that really disappointed me as he was a good midfielder for us at this level and I hoped that he could be again for us.
Kamara has left our club with dignity, too, taking to Twitter to thanks fans for their support and making his time at Bolton so special.
We thank you too Medo. I really want to see you do well again and I’ve missed seeing you battle with the midfielders of the Championship and your wonderful smile that speaks so much of positivity and gratitude. Shame it didn’t work out.