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George Thomason’s future at Bolton Wanderers should be decided in the next 24 hours amid a £1 million bid from Championship club Bristol City.
The Bolton News understands that City have met the Whites’ valuation of the 22-year-old midfielder in a deal which also carries with it several bonus elements.
Wanderers are reticent to lose the young playmaker, however, as it is felt he has the talent and ability to improve further under Ian Evatt and become a regular starter in League One and above.
Thomason is also settled and has been used as a substitute in the opening two league games, with John Sheehan picked ahead of him, but started against Barrow in the Carabao Cup.
Bristol City boss Nigel Pearson is looking to bolster his midfield options after selling Alex Scott to Bournemouth for a club record £25m last week – but after hitting the ‘magic number’ it now seems only a matter of whether Bolton want to sell, or the player wants to leave.
Thomason was signed for free from non-league Longridge Town in January 2020 by former Bolton boss Keith Hill on a recommendation from a former Wigan Athletic striker, Lee Ashworth, who was in charge of the Northern Premier team. As such, he is the longest-serving member of the first team squad and signed a new contract last season which ties him to Bolton until 2025.
Evatt said after the 3-0 victory against Cheltenham Town that he expected a decision to be made on Thomason by close of business on Monday after what he termed a “significant bid”.
The performance itself was another encouraging one for Wanderers, who now lead the embryonic League One table after two games.
“I thought we had another gear but some of the build up was as good as you’ll see,” said Evatt, who saw Dion Charles score his first two goals of the season in the first half, either side of an own goal from Liam Smith.
“We did a lot of work on exposing and provoking pressure and then how we break that down in the off-season. We have given ourselves some fundamental rules.
“But for an in-possession team, which we were last year, it looks like we are a lot more creative this season. It seems we have more threat and we are putting the opposition under serious pressure.
“And what is really pleasing for me is the counter-press. Playing the way we do, we are going to give the ball away, and we are asking the players to put the ball more as risk in the final third. If we lose it we are reacting quicker and more positively as a team.
“We know because of Ricardo Santos’s athleticism at the back there we are able to strange teams and get the ball back really quickly, sustain attacks, and I am really pleased with it over the past three games.”
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