WANDERERS hope to profit from Fulham’s Premier League promotion by bartering a permanent deal for Marlon Fossey.

The West Londoners will be playing top-flight football once again next season and are expected to spend big this summer to avoid coming straight back down again for a third successive time.

That will be good news for Bolton, who are keen to buy out the 23-year-old’s contract at Craven Cottage after a highly successful loan spell.

Fossey was a smash hit at the UniBol following his arrival in January, making 16 appearances and scoring once, until a knee injury ended his season early.

Evatt has spoken to the defender as he continues with his rehabilitation and says there have been encouraging signs in recent negotiations with Fulham and Fossey’s representatives.

“I’m still in contact with Marlon, he’s doing great as well,” he told The Bolton News. “Talking about future conversations, it’s great to be involved in that.

“There’s just a chance. We obviously really like him, he obviously really liked it here but there’s a lot of ifs, buts and maybes in the middle of that. But dialogue is positive, so we’ll just see how it goes really.”

Wanderers finish their League One campaign at home to Fleetwood this Saturday lunchtime (12.30pm kick off) and can assure a 10th placed finish provided they avoid defeat.

Evatt had targeted the play-off spots before a ball had been kicked but two poor patches in October and December left the club with too much ground to make up on the top spots.

Narrow defeats away from home against the likes of Sunderland and Sheffield Wednesday – at a stage when Wanderers were faring well - still stick in the manager’s craw.

He is convinced, however, that after strengthening his squad in January that his players will be better able to handle those challenges in the future.

“Both games (against Sheffield Wednesday and Sunderland) still leave a bit of a bitter taste because of how well we played on the day, but that was kind of where we were at, at that time,” he said.

“We’d play people off the park and play incredible football but we wouldn’t score and we’d concede a really sloppy goal and that was kind of the theme of the time.

“But I think we’ve come a long way since then. The character, mindset, mentality, culture, environment, personality of the players has all improved since then and we’re in a much better place.”