Ian Evatt says Dion Charles is “ready to go” in League One despite a disrupted pre-season at Wanderers.

The Northern Irish international carried over a knee issue from the back end of last term which kept him out of the early friendlies.

Charles made his return to the pitch against Stoke City and got on the scoresheet at Port Vale several days later.

He also got minutes under his belt for the B Team on Tuesday and again found the back of the net, this time from the penalty spot.

Evatt is optimistic Charles will be a “different animal” from the final stages of last season when he was playing through the pain.

“Dion is ready to go,” he told The Bolton News. “He is a really fit lad anyway, naturally, and you can see he is completely different now to what he was at the back end of last season when he was clearly managing an issue.

“We were just trying to get him through games. He is a different animal now and is ready to go.

“His goal at Port Vale was a very good finish, vintage Dion really, and again scoring on Tuesday and building some more confidence in his body and more minutes. He is ready to play.”

Charles has finished the past two seasons as the Whites’ top scorer, reaching the 20-goal mark in each campaign.

Another player who has been dealing with an injury during pre-season is Chris Forino, who arrived on a free transfer from Wycombe over the summer.

Evatt admits the towering defender is unlikely to feature against Leyton Orient but is confident fans will get to see him in a Bolton shirt for the first time soon.

“Chris is fully fit now but he has missed a large portion of pre-season, and just an err of caution really with him,” he added.

“He is a real athlete, he is 6ft 4, really mobile and physical but those big units sometimes take a little bit longer to get conditioned to the level we need them to be at.

“He is back and had some minutes on Tuesday. He will have some more minutes with the fixtures we have got coming up but is he ready to start in the league this Saturday? Probably not.

“If we were light in numbers in that area, we would probably risk it but at the moment, we feel it is probably not worth the risk.”

Szabi Schön came straight into the side at Port Vale following his move from Hungary, and Evatt is excited about what the 23-year-old will bring to the table in the coming weeks and months.

“He has played in Hungary and played in Europe, so he is fit and ready to go,” the manager explained.

“What I like about Szabi is there is no fear, he does everything at full speed and I think he is really going to become a fan favourite.

“They are really going to take to him and it is great they can fall in love with somebody we own and not just a loan player!

“I think he is going to have a big season for us and I really like what I have seen so far.”