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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
John McDougall

'Lots more to come' - Ian Evatt on Bolton Wanderers' summer transfer window so far

There is 'lots more' transfer window business to come for Bolton Wanderers this summer and Ian Evatt believes the League One side have a 'good chance' of landing most of their number one targets.

Wanderers are preparing for life back in the third tier of English football after winning automatic promotion out of League Two last season.

Several new contracts have been handed out at the University of Bolton Stadium, while fresh additions have also been made.

Oladapo Afolayan has returned to the club on a permanent basis after his successful loan spell from West Ham United last season.

Defender George Johnston has joined from Feyenoord after spending the second half of last season at Wigan Athletic, while central midfielder Josh Sheehan has joined on a two-year contract after leaving Newport County.

Evatt is pleased with how the summer recruitment is going so far and believes more is to come, adding he is confident they could get all bar one of their primary transfer targets.

The Bolton boss is also confident that there could be some good news on the efforts to bring Declan John back to the club, who is now a free agent after being released by Swansea City and had a successful spell on loan at Wanderers last season.

He said: "To be honest we’ve got primary targets for all the positions we want to strengthen and we’re working our way through those.

"Fundamentally at the moment it looks like we’ve got a good chance of getting all our number one targets, bar one really who happened to score on his debut at one of the big clubs at the end of the season, but other than that I think things are going really well with our primary targets.

“It’s going very well. I’m very happy. George was a player we’d monitored for a few months, but obviously it was only really on the cards once we got into League One. We see him as a top League One and Championship player - that’s what he is and that’s what he’ll prove to be.

“Similarly with Josh, a player that we tracked for a while and again it was waiting to see the outcome of how the season would end for us, and fortunately for us, we were promoted and have made two very good signings.

“There’s lots more to come and I mustn’t forget Dapo as well who was fantastic from January. It was almost like a test drive for six months on both parties. He likes us and we liked him so it’s great to get that done.

"It’s three exciting players at a good age for this football club but there’s lots more to come.

"Hopefully we’ll have some good news for everyone this week on one of last season’s loan players and I’m pretty sure you know who I’m talking about, but things are progressing really well.”

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