IAN Evatt insists he has signed his number one wing-back target this summer in Liverpool’s Conor Bradley.

Wanderers confirmed yesterday that the Northern Ireland international will join on loan for the season, although he will not be travelling to their warm weather training base in Portugal.

The addition of Bradley ends Evatt’s search for a right wing-back and any chance of signing Fulham’s Marlon Fossey, who had at one stage looked the top name on his shortlist.

The Bolton boss has revealed, however, that Fossey was actually the back-up option in January, and that he had initially wanted to sign Bradley.

Liverpool declined his offer back then but have since added £6million full-back Calvin Ramsay to the squad, giving the teenager license to get games out on loan.

Even then, the Reds wanted to check on Bolton’s training methods and facilities before they would allow him out.

“I’ll always be honest and I’ll always be truthful. In January, we wanted Conor Bradley - he was our number one target in January,” Evatt explained.

“Marlon was a close second, but Liverpool weren’t willing to let Conor out at that stage. Conor was involved in their first team, so we signed Marlon.

“Marlon was fantastic and a wonderful player. Did we want to sign him? Yes, but there were risks attached and once we found out that Conor was available, we moved on really quickly.

“Conor was our priority in January, it didn’t happen but it’s going to happen now which is huge credit to where this football club is at, the work we’re doing on the pitch and Liverpool for identifying us as a club which will take care of Conor and make it happen.”