Bayern Munich boss Jurgen Klinsmann feels that wantaway striker Lukas Podolski has lost the will to fight for a place in the team.

Podolski has more often than not had to settle for a place on the bench with Klinsmann, as his predecessor Ottmar Hitzfeld did last season, favouring Luca Toni and Miroslav Klose up front.

And the former national team coach believes the forward is no longer interested in challenging that duo for a starting place.

"It hurts inside when you see that here is a special talent that is simply standing still and not developing, because he cannot avoid the situation of having two established players in front of him," Klinsmann told Bayern's official website.

"I wished that he had carried a certain anger in him, which he would bring out in the game and say: 'Now I will show them'.

"Bayern is a now club, where it is a case of either-or.

"Either a player accepts this challenge and says: 'I will get in to the team at some point', like Tim Borowski, Hamit Altintop, Daniel van Buyten or Andreas Ottl - to name but a few - do.

"Or it is perhaps better if you change your environment. I believe that he, in his nature, is not the type to take the fight to the players who are in front of him.

"He needs an environment that gives him the feeling he is established. But on the other hand I can also understand him, I can empathise with him."

Podolski, who joined the Bundesliga champions from Cologne in 2006, is expected to agree a return to his former club before the end of January, even though any transfer will not go through until the northern summer.

Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge told the Bild newspaper: "We are talking about a move in the (northern) summer and not before.

"We have, if you will, already only three and a half strikers for the second half of the season, because (Landon) Donovan is only on loan (from Los Angeles Galaxy until March 8).

"From March, if we were to sell Podolski, we would only have two."

Cologne general manager Michael Meier, meanwhile, sounded a note of caution and warned the two clubs still have some way to go before reaching agreement on transfer.

It was reported that the deal would be made official tomorrow when Bayern return from their mid-season training camp in Dubai, but Meier insists there are still plenty of negotiations to be held.

They are unwilling to match Bayern's asking price and Meier hopes that can still be reduced.

"It is always being taken for granted that the things are dealt with, even in the media, but we clearly need the help of FC Bayern," he told the Kolner Stadtanzeiger newspaper.

"If Bayern do not compromise, then we won't make it."

Bayern's general manager Uli Hoeness recently claimed the two clubs were "very close" to reaching a compromise over the transfer fee, but Meier insists there are more than just formalities to sort out.

"These are not just technicalities for us," he said. "If there were just technicalities to be dealt with, then this deal would have been done a long time ago."