YOAN Zouma will be given a chance to earn a contract with Bolton Wanderers.

The French defender was in on trial last week and will continue to train with Ian Evatt’s squad for the next few days as a decision on whether to offer him a contract is made.

Zouma made 23 appearances for Bolton last season, earning cult status on the terraces.

But he quickly priced himself out of staying at the club in the summer and was released at the end of June.

Speaking after Wanderers’ 1-0 home defeat to Forest Green, Ian Evatt explained why bad advice may have played its part in the 22-year-old being a free agent.

“I think the problem we have at the moment, and it’s a big one in the industry, is that agents are dictating players’ minds,” he said. “Prior to salary caps coming in agents were selling dreams to players when we all knew it was happening, everyone in the game understood it.

“Agents were selling dreams of Championship, League One, going abroad for loads of money, then the season kicked-off nothing has materialised and these players are out of work.

“The good agents and some of the players we signed understood the situation and were sympathetic that we’re in the middle of a pandemic and there’s a salary cap coming in. Maybe they took less in wages, just to have a job.

“There are so many good players out there now who are out of work and should have taken offers when they got them earlier in the summer only for their agent to talk them out of it.

“It won’t be the agents who pay your bills.

“Yoan falls into that bracket. He probably got sold a dream and nothing materialised.

“We wanted to keep him and now he’s back in the building. He hasn’t got anything else.

“We’ll have a look at him, see where he’s at, and whether he can fit into what we are doing.

“If he does, there’s potentially something to be done. It’s doable. If he doesn’t, we’ll move on.”