When looking into the interesting case of Bertrand Traoré you will often find a large amount of unnecessary outrage amongst the Aston Villa fans. This season has been a promising season for the new Aston Villa man as we have seen both the highs and the lows of the Burkina Faso international.
We'll start with the highs of Bertrand Traoré's season, in this season we have seen a rise in his production compared to our wingers last season. In this Traoré has 6 goals and 5 assists in all competitions for Aston Villa, this is the third best production from anyone in the Villa squad. A high point in the Villa mans season was his impressive performance against Aston Villa's close rivals West Brom, in this game Bertrand Traoré was able to manage a very impressive assist, via a back post cross, and a slick finish into the bottom corner from just outside the box catching Sam Johnstone wrong-footed.
The Aston Villa right winger has also had plenty more eye-catching performances; we have seen him have a brilliant 45 minutes vs Crystal Palace, score a wonderful goal vs Newcastle United and assist a mouth watering winner from El Ghazi. we have also seen signs of promise from the winger with moments of magic in times of need such as the goals against Leicester City and Manchester United.
However, with Traoré with the highs you also have the lows, within recent weeks we have seen a Traoré at 30% of his potential. when thinking about his lesser performances there there is one main one that springs to mind and that is his performance against Tottenham Hotspur where Traoré really failed to set anything alight at Villa Park.
The key attributes of Traoré are the fact that he's fast on his feet, he can have moments of just pure magic and can make playing football look incredibly easy, he is probably the second most naturally gifted player at the club as well, hence why he has such a decorated CV in massive European clubs formally playing for Chelsea, Ajax and Lyon. the main criticism from fans is his consistency however with fans claiming he is either incredible or unrecognizable on the pitch.
With this criticism though I feel it is an unfair assessment on the winger, with it being his first season back in the Premier League I believe he can be excused for the odd poor game as when he's on it he's unplayable at times. It's also natural for most wingers to be inconsistent as you often see some of the best also be inconsistent often in whole seasons though.
All in all, I believe Traoré might just be the most underrated player at the club and is often used as a scapegoat from fans and someone to be able to moan at if we lose because fans expect him to be getting a goal or an assist every game when however, a total of 11 goal contributions in 33 games in all competitions in a new league with players you had never met before joining, its a massive credit to Traoré and shows just how good he can become for Aston Villa.
@AVFC__Alex
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