
The Bolton manager revealed that a long-standing target has become available, giving him more options up front in addition to his current attackers Victor Adeboyejo, John McAtee, and Aaron Collins.
Bolton has lacked muscle since letting go of Jon Dadi Bodvarsson and Cameron Jerome in the summer, but Evatt believes that a chance to sign a player with a comparable skill set may have arisen this week with the sale of Dion Charles to Huddersfield Town.
A guy we identified in the summer who has been quite active with his Premier League team this season is someone we are fairly close to,” he told The Bolton News.
We all came to the conclusion that selling Dion was the best course of action at this particular moment, so it wasn’t only my decision, the board’s decision, or Dion’s decision.
We are working very hard behind the scenes to ensure that we can get that kind of player, and it does provide us some flexibility and the opportunity to bring in a different kind of player.
However, the one thing I would say is that there is a lot of competition for it, and the type I’m referring to is prime Didier Drogba. Therefore, we need to figure out what we value right now, what our backup plan is, and then check those boxes and hire the right people.
Players under the age of 21 would not count towards the EFL squad cap and Evatt added that one of the main options being considered would be a player in their first loan away from his parent club.
“There’s always a risk and reward with these types of loans,” he added. “Generally I don’t like taking first loans I think this is too big a club too big a platform to step into as a first loan unless we think that they’re exceptional.
“The caveat to that was obviously Conor Bradley, who we knew was exceptional, but with James Trafford it was his second loan, and his first loan (at Accrington) wasn’t great.
“Paris Maghoma had been out on loan twice, so it’s hard to get first loans to come out of academy football and play in this environment in this pressure and at the size of this football club. It is not for everybody.

We have to be really selective and make sure that we try and get it right.”
Wanderers have had unsuccessful ‘first loans’ before, including Manchester United’s Shola Shoretire, who left Old Trafford in the summer and is now playing at PAOK Thessaloniki in Greece.
“It can be a shock to the system,” Evatt added. “We saw it ourselves with Shola, who was incredibly highly rated, we thought he would be really well suited to this, and he started great but dipped and probably found it a little bit too much.
“But he’s now playing in Europe and in the Greek Premier League most weeks so it doesn’t mean to say he wasn’t ready for it or wasn’t talented enough for it but he came and made his mistakes here.
“This isn’t a football club where you can afford to make mistakes or a learning ground or a learning platform this is a football club where you have to hit the ground running if you’re a new recruit.
Again, these conversations are difficult to have and we have to be pretty sure that if we are bringing in a first loan that we think they’re capable of doing what we need them to do.”