Aston Villa journalist Gregg Evans has been sharing his thoughts on the club’s summer signing of winger Bertrand Traore.
This comes after Evans recently made an appearance on The Athletic’s Villa-themed podcast 1874 where he discussed a number of different subjects concerning the club.
While assessing and summarising Villa’s recent summer transfer window and the players they signed during the window, Evans had this to say on Traore.
He said: “I suppose the wildcard is Bertrand Traore. What he will do is he will add stern competition to Trezeguet, and I think Trezeguet has taken his game on a level because he knows that there’s a £19 million player sitting on the bench ready to come on if he doesn’t perform.
“I look at Traore as a bit of a wildcard one, [in] that he wasn’t tracked for a long period. He wasn’t somebody that [Dean] Smith had his eye on for a long time. He was just a player that fit the profile of what they wanted. They wanted somebody who could play on that right side, be versatile and play down the middle if possible and bring additional pace to the team. It was ticking a couple of boxes and he fit the criteria, so let’s see what he can do as well.”
Villa signed Traore from French club Olympique Lyon last month for a fee of £16.56 million. Since arriving at Villa Park, Traore has started in both of Villa’s Carabao Cup fixtures but only played nine minutes of action for the club in the Premier League (per Transfermarkt).
Before making the move to Villa, the 25-year-old, who is currently valued at £8.55 million, made a total of 126 appearances for Lyon in which he managed to score 33 goals and provide 17 assists along the way.
Are you confident Traore will be a successful signing for Villa?
Yes
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As well as Traore, Villa signed Ollie Watkins, Matty Cash and Emiliano Martinez on permanent deals throughout the latest summer transfer window and also signed Chelsea midfielder Ross Barkley on a season-long loan deal.
TIF Thoughts…
It’s interesting to hear from Evans that Traore was pretty much only bought because he fit the bill of the type of player Villa were looking for at the time.
Even though Traore hasn’t really had the opportunity to show what he can do in the Premier League for Villa yet, you would expect him to get his chance to start at least one league game at some point throughout the season.