Tomas Kalas Hopes To Put Nightmare Cologne Loan Behind Him

Tomas Kalas is now on loan from Chelsea FC to Championship side Middlesbrough and he is hoping to put his nightmare loan spell at FC Cologne behind him. Kalas did not play a single minute of first time football in Germany and he was thankfully recalled as soon as the January transfer window. He is now looking to the future with Middlesbrough and seems to be pleased with the way things are going with the Teesside club.

More from The Pride of London

Kalas spoke to The Northern Echo about his situation and said, “in the last year and a half, I can count the number of games I have played on one hand. There weren’t many, so I hope this is the start of a better future. It didn’t go the way I would have wanted (at Cologne). I had zero games and zero minutes. I’m just pleased it’s over to be honest – everyone can imagine what it was like for a player who wasn’t playing and who wants to play. I went there on loan to play, but it didn’t work out well”.

The young defender started his first match of the season last week in a goalless draw against Reading. While this may have been routine for most of the players it was an exciting change for a player who had not seen the pitch all year long. Kalas said, “I hope the fact I played the first game here is a sign of things to come. It’s a good start and hopefully I can improve myself. I always try to improve myself with the training side of things, but it is very hard to do that if you are not playing games.”

When Tomas Kalas arrived on loan he became the third Chelsea FC youngster in the squad and could have been the fourth had he joined in the summer before Jamal Blackman was recalled. Kalas revealed that Boro was interested in him in the summer window but he chose to make the move to Cologne instead. Hindsight is of course 20/20 but luckily Aitor Karanka and the Boro staff were still interested him. It helped that they had lost their two right backs and believed Kalas could fill the hole there.

The Czech Republic defender does prefer to play at centerback but he is versatile enough to play on the wings. He has excellent pace for a defender and he will get a chance to play in a very physical league in the Championship. In fact, his lack of size at just 6’0″ may make him better suited to play fullback than center back, especially at the Premier League level. Wherever he is playing does not seem to matter as the youngster is probably happy to just be on the pitch.