Yoan Zouma's presence at Bolton Wanderers training and chances of signing explained by Ian Evatt

The 22-year-old is currently without a club after being released by Wanderers over the summer

Ian Evatt has explained that there could yet potentially be a place at Bolton Wanderers for released defender Yoan Zouma who has been training with the Trotters.

The 22-year-old joined Bolton in 2018 initially with the club's under-23 set-up and made his first team debut last season against Wycombe Wanderers on the first day of the League One campaign.

Zouma, the younger brother of Chelsea and France defender Kurt, played a total of 23 times in all competitions for Wanderers last season.

But he was among 14 players to be released over the summer at Wanderers when the club announced its retained list earlier this year ahead of life in League Two.

Since then, Zouma has not yet found a new club and has recently been training with Wanderers at the Lostock training ground.

Evatt said: "We wanted or would have liked to have tried to have kept Yoan, so he’s back in the building, he hasn’t got anything else.

"So we’ll have a look at him, see how he’s at, where he’s at and if he can fit into what we want to do, and if he does, there could be potentially something to be done there.

"If he doesn’t then we’ll move on again."

Explaining the situation, Evatt claims Zouma may fall into a category which the Bolton head coach feels has become common over the summer in light of the pressures brought about by the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent imposition of salary caps.

Evatt suggests that a section of football agents have been 'selling players dreams' of moves to clubs in the Championship and abroad, despite the prevailing economic climate and knowledge of the salary cap being imposed.

The Bolton boss says that those agents and players who understood the situation and the imposition of the salary cap may have taken lower wages than previously, just to be in work.

But he feels there are a long list of players who he claims may have been dissuaded from taking offers earlier in the summer by their agents and are still yet to find a club.

Evatt said: "I think the problem we’ve got at the moment and it’s a big problem in the industry is that agents are dictating players’ minds and, prior to the salary cap coming in, agents were selling dreams to players, when we all knew the salary cap was going to come in.

"Everyone in the game understood it, but agents are selling players dreams about going to Championship clubs, League One clubs or moving abroad for loads of money.

"The season’s kicked off, nothing’s materialised and these players, unfortunately for them, are out of work.

"The good agents and some of the players that we signed understood that situation and were sympathetic towards the fact that we’ve been in a pandemic and that there’s a salary cap coming in, so maybe took some less wages just to have a job.

"I think there’s so many players out there now if you look at the list, there’s some fantastic players by the way, that are out of work and should have taken offers when they got them earlier in the summer, and their agents probably talked them out of it.

"It’s not the agents that are going to pay your bills, it’s the clubs and the players have got to pay their own bills, so they’ve got to make their own decisions and unfortunately, Yoan probably falls under that bracket that he probably got sold a dream, and nothing’s materialised."