Martin Olsson has impressed Rovers fans after breaking into the first team. But, in an exclusive interview, he tells us it could have been a different story...

A CHRONIC bout of home sickness, family problems and shattered confidence. Martin Olsson’s Blackburn Rovers career could easily have been over almost before it had started.

Ask any Rovers fan for their vote for young player of the season and the Swede will already figure predominantly, but not before a series of daunting hurdles threatened to prevent him from fulfilling his potential.

Olsson’s starring role in Rovers’ brave Carling Cup exit on Wednesday night was another sign of the 21-year-old’s growing maturity as he continues to repay the faith shown in him when he was plucked from obscurity in Sweden at 17 and thrown into the Premier League.

Think back 14 months though and he cut a lonely figure as he trudged off the White Hart Lane Turf, seemingly with the weight of the world on his shoulders and the personal doubts creeping in.

An inexperienced Olsson had just been sent off for the first time in his professional career, after being on the wrong end of a footballing lesson from Tottenham winger Aaron Lennon, leaving him playing the blame game for the subsequent 1-0 Premier League defeat.

He said: “Even if Lennon was having a good day and I was having a good day, things would have been different. But I had a bad day. I had things on my mind that day and they weren’t about football.

“That was definitely the lowest I felt. Other games before that I did okay seeing as it was my first season. But you get sent off after 40 minutes and give away a goal - you can’t get worse than that. Just mentally I was down for a long time, for a very long time.

“But everyone here helped me out. They came to me and told me to keep my head up. No one was negative. But even though people were trying to lift me, I found it hard. I was thinking about it every day.

“Even if I smiled, it was false, I was still upset and I thought about it a lot every day. That kept going and that is why my confidence was so low. People said forget about it but I wanted to show the fans how good I am and thought I had let them all down after that game.

“It helps me now though. I don’t think you can play a worse game than that. I am thinking positively now and not thinking about the different stuff that I did before.”

Paul Ince’s dismissal as manager soon followed that Tottenham defeat, after a nightmare league run left Rovers deep in the relegation mire, and Sam Allardyce’s subsequent appointment saw Olsson instantly pulled out of the firing line.

Just two Premier League appearances followed before the end of last season, compared to the seven handed to him by Ince, and Olsson admits a break from the pressure was just what he needed.

“I was low on confidence and that showed on the pitch and it was hard to get back after that,” he said. “I was so low mentally, but in a way it is good Sam Allardyce didn’t put me in the side straight away because my confidence was that low.

“I had family problems at the time. Just coming in the team when things weren’t going so well also put the pressure on. I was struggling to cope with it all.

“If we lost a game I would take it very hard and that didn’t help either. I remember we won against Newcastle and my confidence was so high but then we started losing and losing – obviously it affected everyone – but me more than it should have done because it was my first season in the Premier League.

“I was out injured in pre-season when Paul Ince came and I just jumped straight into the team. So I wasn’t match fit, I didn’t do my match fitness. Now I have done that and I am fitter and ready.

“It is only football now. When you play in the Premier League you have to think about the football, the way you eat, the way you sleep and I have been doing that now. I am playing well now as a result.”

Olsson’s rollercoaster Ewood Park adventure started back in January 2006 when he arrived at the club’s academy from Hogaborgs BK for a trial with identical twin brother Marcus.

He was quickly offered a three-year deal, while Marcus was sent back home – via a brief trial with Bolton Wanderers – leaving the left back contemplating life away from home for the first time.

He has since signed a new four-year deal in 2008, after being voted young player of the season in 2007-08, but despite making his Premier League debut that season he admits it has been far from easy and revealed how close he was to giving it all up.

“I really didn’t want to come over here for good to be honest,” said Olsson. “I just felt I should come and see what it was like. I was surprised when I got the three year contract and when I got that I didn’t think about the first team. I just thought I would get that experience and go back to Sweden.

“For six months I just wanted to go home to Sweden. Mentally I didn’t play my best football for a long time. It was so different. I had to do all these things that I didn’t do in Sweden. In Sweden my mum made food for me and looked after me and I went to bed whenever I wanted to.

“We trained at 6pm three times a week in Sweden, here it was every day and we wake up at 9am. After training I just went home and fell asleep every day. It was so hard. You learn though, you have to.

“I phoned my family every day. Mostly to my brother because I was with him every day and then I wasn’t, that was hard. Of course my mum and my sister as well. They all gave me so much support.

“I said I wanted to go home but they said don’t do it. They said I had always said I wanted to be a professional footballer and that this was my chance. They said how could I be that if I didn’t stay and give it everything. Without them I would probably have gone home.”

Now though, Olsson is loving life in East Lancashire and relishing the challenge of pitting his wits against some of the world’s best on a week-to-week basis.

He isn’t about to start getting carried away by his recent emergence but is confident the last few years have provided the experiences to help him make it at the very top.

He said: “I have wanted to play here ever since I watched Manchester United on the television back home. They always showed the games with Ryan Giggs and I wanted to play in that league.

“Now I am here and want to get as many games as I can. I just want to play.

“I hope I can stay here now of course. When I am playing my best football, I know I can play at this club and play in this league. This is the league I like and I have shown I can play in this league. I know I need more games to show that though. If I work hard then the manager will pick me. It is as simple as that.

“It is hard to get into the Swedish national team because they don’t pick too many young players.

“They want you to be older, now a new manager has come in though so we will see what happens. Some of the younger ones did play with me in the under 21s. My chance will come if I just play as I am doing now.”