Nathan Delfouneso's move to Bradford City on transfer deadline day could be a springboard for him getting a new club in the summer after Ian Evatt signalled that the attacker's time at Bolton Wanderers has come to an end.
The 31-year-old departed Wanderers on transfer deadline day to move to the Bantams on loan until the end of the season.
Delfouneso's contract expires this summer and it appears he may have played his last game for Bolton.
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The attacker has made 20 appearances this season for Bolton and scored twice, but most of these have been from the bench and he has started just two matches all season in League One for the club.
Wanderers strengthend the attack over the past month with the likes of Dion Charles, Jon Dadi Bodvarsson and Kieran Sadlier all arriving over the course of January.
Coupled with what Wanderers already had in the final third of the pitch, Delfouneso faced reduced chances of playing time and Evatt has now spoken on the former Blackpool man's departure, with the Bolton boss believing the attacker needs to go out and play to earn a deal elsewhere for next season.
Evatt said: “Obviously we’ve signed a lot of players and a lot of players in Nathan’s position so we felt it best that he go out and play regular football and try and earn himself a contract for next season.
“He’s got six months left of his contract here and after that, he’ll need to impress to get something somewhere else. That’s just football.
"Obviously he’s been a big part of what we’ve done so far and great last year. We wish him well and we just move on.”
Ronan Darcy has also moved out on loan, his second spell away from Wanderers this season after heading to Queen's Park for the remainder of the campaign.
Evatt admits it has been a difficult situation for younger players such as Darcy and Adam Senior, who both needs minutes to continue their developments but which is tricky without an under-23s team at Bolton currently.
That situation could change in the future but for now, the likes of Darcy and Senior must be playing regular men's first team football to continue their promising career trajectories.
Evatt said: “It was a real difficult one for Ronan but Ronan needs to go out and play regular football, as does Adam Senior. I keep speaking a lot about the gap between the 18s and the first team. It’s too big and we almost need an under 23s team but we haven’t got that at the moment.
“So we felt it best that Adam Senior and Ronan go out and play regular first team football against men and further their development and then we’ll make a call on what we do with them in the summer.
“It’s something that I think we need to do to bring the gap between our youth team and the first team because at the moment, it’s just getting bigger and bigger and the quality of player we’re bringing in, it’s huge.
“The Academy is a good few years behind recruitment-wise, from eights to 16s as to where we want them to be. There’s lots of hard work going on behind the scenes to start getting our recruitment right in the Academy and making the most of where we are in this North West hub of football with some big Category One teams knocking around.
“There’s loads of plans.”
