Aston Villa’s signing of Bertrand Traore turned into another of those semi-long winded transfer rumour mill escapades, but we finally announced the capture of the 25-year-old from Lyon last weekend.
The Burkina Faso international attacker comes in with a pretty decent set of stats with 70 goals returned from a wider position on the pitch in his 232 club appearances and he should certainly add additional punch and pace for us at the top of the pitch – even if he needs a bit of time to settle in.
A settling in period helped by his spell at Chelsea and already knowing John Terry, Marvelous Nakamba and Anwar El Ghazi.
Although he didn’t debut, somewhat expectedly, on Monday evening as we opened the Premier League campaign on home soil against Sheffield United, there is an expectation he’ll at least be on the bench for Thursday’s EFL Cup third round clash with Bristol City, but plenty of fans have high hopes for him having watched highlight reels.
Speaking to French outlet RFI after completing the move, Traore doesn’t sound like he’s here to make up the numbers and there is an element of no love being lost with his former club.
“I liked the project. They got in touch with me and offered me a good project. The aim is to come and play, to do good things and to help the team stay in the Premier League. I think it’s better to talk about my new club instead of wasting time on what happened at Lyon. I took the decision of joining a new club, a new project, a club that wanted me. I’m happy to be here and to start a new adventure. I spent three years at Lyon, I did my time there. I’m happy of my time at Lyon”.
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In the interview he went on to talk about not having ‘time to waste’ given his age now and clearly appreciating that he was in Dean Smith’s ‘plans’ as a big pull for the move and not wanting to simply keep ‘sitting on a bench’ – so the lad is motivated and is saying all the right things.
Let’s hope it works out for all of us, as again, it’s another significant investment and another player clearly wanting to better themselves who has bought into the project.
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