WANDERERS will be looking to ship out “four or five” players to make room for the final touches to their League One squad.

Ian Evatt is happy to report he has got the majority of his transfer business completed, as planned, for the first week of pre-season training. Eight signings – Dapo Afolayan, Declan John, Xavier Amaechi, Will Aimson, George Johnston, Joel Dixon, Amadou Bakayoko and Josh Sheehan – offer good competition in most areas of the squad.

But the Wanderers boss admits he will have to make cuts in the coming weeks in order to get the last couple of “quality” signings he craves.

Speaking to The Bolton News, he said: “We probably need one or two more to make sure we are fully covered.

“I think anyone that understands football will look at our squad and our recruitment and try to understand what I’m doing and I’m trying to really get us fundamentally two players of equal strength in every position, that’s the aim and that’s the ambition.

“I still think we’re one or two light, especially when we lose a couple out of a squad. I would think there would be probably four or five exits and then one or two more real bits of quality coming in later on.”

Evatt reckons the fact he has got his business done early will encourage new players to settle quickly during the pre-season friendly schedule, which kicks off next weekend at Longridge.

The arrival of Chris Markham as technical performance director, plus his analysis team, has added an extra level of expertise to the club’s recruitment this summer and Evatt believes fans will notice the difference.

“The method of recruitment hasn’t changed but I think we identified where we needed to improve, which areas of the pitch, what those players looked like and went out to get them quickly,” he said.

“From the minute Chris Markham came in, we were sat once or twice a week for hours on end watching footage, watching players, doing reports on players and making lists and shortlists.

“Lots of hard work has gone into our recruitment and we had identified our targets pretty early on and I’ve got to say, we’ve primarily got our number one targets and that’s thanks to the board for allowing us to do it and backing us and now we’re ready to go and kick on.

“Our squad is complete. There are going to be exits and with exits, there might be one or two more coming in, but for now, we’re really happy with where we’re at.”