Bolton Wanderers

Ex-Bolton striker blasts Phil Parkinson over his departure from club

Former Bolton Wanderers forward Aaron Wilbraham has hit out at ex-Trotters boss Phil Parkinson for “not fighting his corner” when he was desperately trying to secure a new deal to stay at the club.

Veteran striker Wilbraham, who is now 38 and playing for fellow Sky Bet League One side Rochdale said he was prepared to stay at the club after saving them from the drop in May 2018.

His crucial goal in the dying minutes of the last game of the season gave Bolton a 3-2 win over Nottingham Forest and secured another campaign in the Championship.

Wilbraham says he wanted to stay and play for the club next season and was even willing to take a pay cut to help the financially-stricken Trotters out.

However, in a revealing interview with the Under The Cosh podcast, Wilbraham says instead of being offered a new deal, he was left to find himself a new club with Parkinson offering little in the way of support.

He said: “They’d put it in the papers that seven or eight had been released and I was thinking ‘surely I’m going to get something here after scoring that goal’.

“Phil Parkinson was saying ‘you’ve saved everyone’s job’ and everyone was saying ‘is he getting another year then, gaffer?’. He said ‘it’s already being spoken about in there’ because Ken Anderson was all buzzing.

“So I was expecting it and then they left it until June 7 – that’s late to let you know if they’re not going to – and the other lads who’d been released had been told around May 15.

“I’m saying to the Mrs, ‘they’ll give me another year and they may try to reduce my money, but I’m telling you they’ll give me another year’.

“I met Phil Parkinson and when I walked in he said, ‘Alby, I’ve been ringing Ken Anderson for the last six weeks. He’s on a boat in Monaco ignoring my calls, so I think it’s best I just say thanks for everything and all the best’.

“He just went to shake my hand and I was like, ‘is that it gaffer, they’re not offering me anything?’. And he said, ‘I can’t get hold of him and what he is telling me to offer you, I don’t want to embarrass you. He’s telling me to give you £500 a week’.”

Wilbraham says he feels as if Parkinson, who went on to resign as Bolton manager in August 2019, did not “fight his corner” and it was a revelation that left him “fuming”.

He said: “I didn’t feel like he’d fought my corner at all. He asked what I meant and I said, ‘you’ve told me I scored the goal to save everyone’s jobs. If I was you and I had a player who you’d bombed all season, not given a sniff and then put all the pressure on in that last game to do something and I’ve done it, then you just turn up and shake my hand’.

“I was fuming. I sat in my car for about 45 minutes and Ben Alnwick was the first person to ring me. He asked what had happened and I told him. All the lads were fuming and I couldn’t believe it.

“I rang my Mrs and told her I’d not been offered anything. I was devastated. It left me a bit bitter but, in a way, I knew I’d left in a good way.”

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