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Wanderers have not ruled out letting Lloyd Isgrove leave the club this January to find regular first team football.
The popular winger has featured just three times for the Whites this season having battled back from two major hamstring injuries.
His last appearance was as a wing-back in the 3-2 win at Accrington Stanley in October, after which he picked up another small tear in the muscle which left him side-lined for another month.
Ian Evatt says Isgrove is pushing hard to get back into his first team plans but the former Southampton man has not yet made the bench since his latest recovery.
Conor Bradley faces a two-match ban if he picks up one more yellow card before March 16 – but Wanderers have the option of using Kieran Sadlier or Gethin Jones as cover.
Isgrove has made more than 60 appearances for the Whites and helped them to promotion from League Two in 2020/21 but Evatt says he will review the 30-year-old’s situation before the deadline.
“Lloyd is still training with the group and he’s training very well too,” he told The Bolton News. “Obviously it is competitive, we have a squad full of good players and at the moment he is not involved.
“We will see how this window develops and make a call from there.”
Wanderers take on Derby County at Pride Park today, where victory would see them leapfrog their hosts into fourth place.
Evatt – who started his playing career with the Rams – says his side looks focussed, having lost just once in their previous 13 games, keeping seven clean sheets in their last eight.
“The next one is always the biggest one, isn’t it?” he told us.
“We respect Derby. These are two really in-form teams, good teams, and it is a case of going toe-to-toe and seeing who ends up on the winning side.
“The next game for us is always the biggest one, especially where we are in the league, with a semi-final thrown into that as well.
“Our focus is only on the next one.”
Paul Warne’s Derby are themselves on a formidable run, a penalty shootout defeat against Liverpool the only minor dent in the last 17 games, which includes four consecutive wins since their goalless draw against Bolton in December.
Evatt reckons the Rams will be in promotion contention all the way to May.
“I think Derby will be there at the end,” he said.
“They have big financial power, able to offer great wages, and they have a really experienced squad sprinkled with quality and a very good manager who knows how to get out of this league. I do think they will be there or thereabouts.
“I think it will be a huge challenge to find out exactly where we are at.”
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