Kieran Lee will be seen by a specialist today to assess the severity of his heel spur injury that he is playing with for Bolton Wanderers but the midfielder could have his season ended prematurely potentially.
The Wanderers midfielder came off after 20 minutes in the 3-2 victory over Oxford United at the weekend.
Lee has been playing with a heel spur that he has and Evatt has previously raised the potential of the former Sheffield Wednesday midfielder having an operation in the summer to have his bone shaved.
READ MORE: Fulham's Marlon Fossey on Bolton Wanderers future, goal acrobatics and Gethin Jones partnership
Ian Evatt has confirmed that Lee is going to see a specialist today to assess the injury and see if the operation can wait until the summer or if he might need to have action taken immediately.
If so, then that could mean his season coming to a premature end.
Evatt said: "Kieran will go and see a specialist about this heel spur he’s got and we will see if we can get him through to the summer or not. It’s not looking very promising.
"It’s not a major issue - it’s just something that needs shaving and sorting out, which will be a two to three month injury. So if he has that done now and he’s not able to continue, then obviously we won’t see him again until the summer. But we’ll refer to the specialist, see what his advice is and go from there.
"It is a big blow, a huge blow because we’ve all seen what a wonderful player Kieran is and what he gives us when he’s fully fit. But injuries happen all the time and we’ve been dealing with them all season.
"The good thing now is that we’ve got players capable of playing in that position and taking his place – we’ve got some options. But Kieran Lee would be a miss for any team in this division."
There is more positive news on Elias Kachunga, who last week returned to running on grass at Wanderers after recovering from a torn thigh.
Evatt has raised the potential of the attacker being back in training by the end of the month and causing him some headaches when it comes to picking a matchday squad.
He said: "It’s possible that he could return to training by the end of the month. When he comes back, we’ve got ever more options and it’s exciting.
"I’m just waiting for people to start to panic about me leaving goalkeepers off the bench again! But that’s a way of me keeping people happy and also having the right options at the right times to go and win games.
"I think it worked well last season and I’m not saying I’m going to do it every game, but there will be certain games where I choose to do that and we’ll take it from there."
