Adama Traore: Our January Signing?

With the January window opening, we have been linked to several players. Winter is always a difficult time to do business, but one player with which we have had concrete links is Wolves winger Adama Traore.

Traore is certainly a player who divides opinion, and people rightly point out his extremely poor end-product. But is it always about that, or are there other variables and circumstances which prevent him from unlocking his true potential?

Let’s have a closer look. (all stats are from fbref)

Playstyle

Here is a compilation of Traore

From here, it is clear that his best trait by far is his ball carrying. He is a proficient traditional winger, who drives to the byline and puts crosses in. This is quite evident from his heatmap (on the left) from the 20/21 season. (obtained from sofascore)

This season, however, we see him playing as an inverted winger at times under Bruno Lage, where he cuts inside and the LWB (Alt-Nouri or Marcal) provides the width. This clearly hasn’t suited him well, because of which he hasn’t been a regular starter for Wolves this season. See his heatmap from this season below

Assuming we get him, I can most definitely see him being an RWB in Conte’s back 5. Our wingers tend to stay narrow (similar to Lage’s team) and Adama can provide us width and dynamism on the wings. Alternatively, he can be a decent backup for Moura, because Bergjwin doesn’t seem to have a future at Spurs for now.

Goals and Assists

SEASON	GOALS	ASSISTS
2018/19	1	1
2019/20	4	9
2020/21	2	2
2021/22 (so far)	0	0

This is where the main issue lies with Traore. He seems to be Messi when he has the ball at his feet, but as soon as he finds himself in the opposition’s box, he turns into a muscular Willian.

6 goals and 11 assists in 92 appearances is a poor return, and this is certainly something we should be wary of if we are trying to build a top 4 level squad on a rather limited budget. One of the criticisms of our attackers has rightly been that they aren’t consistent with their output, which leads to increased pressure and over-reliance on Kane and Son. On days when these two aren’t clicking, our attack crumbles.

In this regard, he seems to be hardly better than Bergjwin and Moura, who have scored 9 goals each in 59 and 82 appearances (domestic leagues) respectively since 2019/20.

However, the consensus is that we intend to play him as a right-wing-back in a 352/343 formation. This can surely be helpful to hide his goal-shy side and make more use of his best attribute, the insane dribbling.

Dribbling

Adama Traore is a dribbling freak. He has the right mix of technicality, pace, and strength in his game. He completed the most dribbles (153) the previous season and leads the charts again this season with 81 successful dribbles (stats from kickest)

Compared to our current wingers and Emerson, that’s a significant upgrade. The following graph demonstrates that (fbref)

The Underlying Numbers

The question remains, can Adama translate his raw attributes into something tangible?

To be honest, we cannot answer this without actually seeing him play in Conte’s system. Football is a game with many variables, and so many things can change when there is a different manager, different system, better or worse players around someone. But we can surely look at some underlying numbers to make somewhat of a judgment if Adama is being held back by his team/manager or not.

He ranks in the top 89 percentile among PL forwards last season in expected assists (0.18 xA per 90). He had 1.9 key passes and 1.46 passes into the final third per 90, ranking him 99 and 82 percentiles among Premier League forwards in the 20/21 season.

His goal and shot-creating actions (GCA and SCA) aren’t a particular upgrade though; in the last 3 seasons in domestic leagues, Traore has 3.75 SCA p90 to Lucas’ 3.07, whilst his GCA p90 is 0.33 compared to Moura’s 0.41. But if Conte plays him at WB, his numbers are far superior to Royal’s; 3.75 SCA and 0.33 GCA p90 to the Brazilian’s 1.89 and 0.19. (It must be noted here that Royal was a traditional RB in a back 4 at Betis and his initial days at Spurs, while Traore has played as a winger)

Can these numbers justify his poor G+A? Probably not, but the discrepancy between these numbers and his end product would make sense if we take into account that Wolves lost Jiminez to a serious injury (from which he still hasn’t properly recovered), while Diego Jota moved to Liverpool. The loss of Matt Doherty must have been a factor too. Although the Irishman has been nothing short of a disaster for us, he was one of the best wingbacks under Nuno at Wolverhampton and a key part of the system.

Defensive Work

Since Traore would primarily be a wingback in our system, it is important that we talk about his defensive abilities.

But in my opinion, this isn’t something which we can quantify. How good someone is defensively can solely be determined by the eye test, and there would be many things different at Spurs like the quality of the CBs, DMs, manager, winger, the whole defensive structure and tactics, among a plethora of things.

There are some stats, however, which we can look at: He has applied 12.7 pressures p90 in PL games since 2019/20, which is less than Lucas, Emerson, and Bergjwin. He has a 29% success rate for the same (his team won the ball within 5 seconds of him applying pressure)

His tackle success over the same period is 64.7%, while Moura has a 61.9% (with 20 more tackles attempted). Royal has a 55.6% success rate, but being a fullback, he has attempted nearly thrice the tackles of Adama

Conclusion:

I am honestly very divided on this signing. Over a long period of time, his underperformance in terms of his xA and xG must have receded to the mean and given more tangible results, but this hasn’t been the case. But at the same time, it can be pointed out that his team lost a lot of their key players, and under Nuno were a conservative team in general, rarely scoring more than once in a game. Even this season, when they have been receiving plaudits for their exciting brand of football, they are bottom for the number of goals scored.

What we all can agree on though, is that he has a very specific skillset. This can be useful in a team that specifically requires that, and can cover the other aspects. Traore can find much better finishers in Kane and Son at Spurs, and his dribbling can really draw defenders away to make more space for them to operate. We have seen that Conte can hide glaring weaknesses of players, and knows exactly what he has to do to get the most of their limited skill set. At Manchester United, Pogba has been inconsistent with many issues, but at Juventus, Conte tailored the system in a way where Pogba looked like an extraordinary midfielder. Other such examples of Conte making players look much better than they actually were are David Luiz, Gary Cahill, Lukaku, Ashley Young; and most similar to Traore, Victor Moses. He too was seen as a RW/RM with an inconsistent output but rejuvenated under the Italian, he became a key part of Chelsea’s 2016/17 title win.

Overall, Traore is a gamble. He isn’t a prospect whom we could expect to improve his decision-making over time as he is reaching his peak years. Personally, for me, I do not think he is a significant upgrade over Lucas, but with the Brazilian reaching 30 soon, Bergjwin and Doherty on their way out, and Emerson not quite being able to adjust to life in England so far, Traore can be a good option for the right price. In the end, we should all have faith in Conte and Paraticci’s judgment, because they know what the team needs. If they insist on him, then Levy should simply pay up.