THEY used to call his dad ‘Tiny’ – and presumably not to his face.

Family genes run strong in Bolton Wanderers’ new loan signing, and Caleb Taylor – son of ex-Blackburn and Birmingham centre-back Martin Taylor.

His Wikipedia page details a player standing 6ft 2ins but anecdotes from the training ground say that might be on the conservative side.

“He’s massive,” laughed Ian Evatt, when asked to describe the 20-year-old, who has turned down offers from the Championship and Scottish Premier League to help Wanderers’ promotion fight.

“He is a very confident boy. He is imposing – and if I am thinking of someone being imposing it means he must be a pretty big bloke.

“His dad was the same. He was a great player and I came up against him a lot.

“He is one we looked at with an eye to a permanent thing but there have been Championship clubs bidding some very serious money for him and West Brom obviously see him as a very serious asset.

“It is great that they trust us to have him for the rest of the season and then we will see what the future holds.

“But he is a physically imposing, athletic centre-back who can also handle the ball, and they are few and far between.”

Blackburn Rovers are understood to have offered a seven-figure fee for Taylor, born in Burnley, but West Brom are currently unwilling to contemplate letting him leave the Hawthorns permanently.

A former team-mate of current Bolton defender Zac Ashworth, who has enhanced his own reputation with his recent displays for the Whites, Taylor is likely to step into the central role of Evatt’s back three in Ricardo Santos’s absence.

The Wanderers boss underlined, however, that he is by no means a stop-gap.

“Finding a replacement is not easy at all but I think they can play together because Caleb can play on the left side or the right side,” he said.

“He is really comfortable in possession, so it isn’t just a direct replacement for Rico.

“Yes, he is a really big part of what we do, but we need players with a similar skillset who can do the things he can do so we don’t have to change and thinker too much with our pressing strategy.

“I was really happy to get it done.”

Wanderers have signed four players in total during January – including the loan additions of Calvin Ramsay, Nat Ogbeta and the £750,000 move for Bristol Rovers’ Aaron Collins.

The window may have been more dramatic than Evatt had initially imagined but he feels the club will go into the final 19 games with their strongest squad yet.

“The aim for any transfer window is to finish it stronger than you started it, and I have done exactly that, in my opinion,” he said. “I am very happy with what we have got, and when we get the few bodies back I think there is real depth to the squad.”