Bertrand Traoré Needs to Shake Last Season’s Blues to Thrive at Villa

Bertrand Traoré Signs

Aston Villa today finally announced the signing of Lyon forward Bertrand Traoré for the previously reported fee of £17m (rising to £19m).

The pacey 25-year-old will hopefully add another dimension to Villa’s attacking player, which has been in need of additional options, especially out wide. Despite being left-footed, Traore likes to play on the right-hand side and cut in. He can also fill in down the middle.

As with the previous signings of Ollie Watkins and Matty Cash, it’s clear that Traoré was also bought in to give Villa more speed and energy on the pitch.

Aside from Jack Grealish, Villa have perhaps been a little predictable in their forward play. Traoré will certainly bring something a little different, but how much of a wild card is he?

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Wild Card?

For the player, his switch from Lyon to Villa, will give him a chance to refocus his career after the disappointing last season at the French club.

Largely frozen out of the first team in Lyon’s Champions League campaign, that saw them reach the semi-finals, Traoré’s had a bit of a backlash from Lyon fans after coming on as a substitute and then missing the deciding penalty in the penalty shoot-out in last season’s Coupe de la Ligue Final that gifted the cup to PSG.

Also, there was this miskick incident below that didn’t exactly help Traoré’s reputation with the Lyon faithful, despite it not being his fault, as he was clipped before pulling the trigger.

Good Business Potential?

In the couple of seasons before 2019/20 that though, when Traoré was impressing at Lyon, he had been constantly linked with a move back to the Premier League, with the likes of Everton, Spurs, Southampton and West Ham, all in the mix for him.

Indeed, Everton were reported to have offered £25m at one stage for his services, so Villa may have done good business at £17m, if he can recapture his earlier form.

In terms of age, time is still on Traoré’s side and with a few friendly Villa faces he’s played with before – John Terry (Chelsea), Marvelous Nakamba (Vitesse) and Anwar El Ghazi (Ajax) – to help him bed back down into the Premier League, there is potential for this to be a good signing for Villa.

Considering Traoré something of wild card isn’t necessary a bad thing. Smith needs options and a greater variety of attacking weapons.

If the ex-Lyon man is providing Villa with both pace and an element of unpredictability, that combination could prove to make him a very useful signing indeed.

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Traoré and other signings discussed on the latest podcast episode

5 COMMENTS

  1. The way I see it is that we are still taking chances on players untried at Premiership level and hoping that they are going to come good and hit the ground running.

    As a matter of interest Werder Bremen less Raschica got beaten 4-1 at home today same problems as last season.

    The only player we have signed this window so far who has Premiership credentials s the Arsenal goalkeeper.

    Traore didn’t do it with world class players at Chelsea, is he going to do it for us or is he just another risk.

    All the talk has been about quality not quantity, can’t say I see this but let’s just hope we’re proven wrong on Monday and start defending from the first second and not give them a couple of goals start before we take our fingers out of our bxxs.

    The Blades won’t want to loose again so we have to be switched on from the whistle and start playing forward passes maybe we might score a couple.

  2. Hopefully in his case the work permit should be a formality, generally I see him as a big risk but we can only hope that the powers that be know what they are doing and it pays off,
    Personally with Samatta on his way and Wesley still injured I still think we are lightweight up front Watkins has great potential but he’s going to need help we can’t expect him to do everything, Davis might be the answer but doesn’t fill me with confidence,

    I realise not strictly strikers but we need either Rashica or Benrahma they both score goals and this would allow Jack to play more centrally which would help Ollie Watkins, but as things stand if he should get an injury we are in massive trouble, Looking forward to the season and every chance of a winning start which would be great for team confidence,

    I also feel a bit sorry for Heaton but Martinez was a brilliant signing. Hoping for another quality signing up front and sooner rather than later.

  3. Confused what the video and sentance “mistake incident below that didn’t exactly help Traoré’s reputation” is meant to show us?

    You can clearly see at 6-7 seconds in slow motion that his trailing leg is kicked by his own player – causing him to trip up.

    Not exactly his fault – and if it where a defender it would have been a penalty.

    If Lyon fans dislike him for been tripped up they need a reality check!!!

    • Should have said ‘miskick incident’ – was autocorrected.

      It became a meme/viral clip ammo (unless you see it in slow-mo, you don’t see the clip on him), that added to his cup final penalty miss and being out of the first team picture, for Lyon fans to write him off with. Just look at Lyon fans comments on any post about the transfer.

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