Different kind of player, but his ability to beat players reminds me a bit of Denilson and his mad skillz. I mean it's all very impressive and all that, and no, you can't coach that into someone. But it's all in bollocks areas. Fine beating someone near the halfway line, but it's of bugger all use if you end up running down a blind alley, or playing a terrible pass into someone, or hammering a cross straight into the stand. All of which happens a hell of a lot with Traore.
Could he improve with better coaching in those respects, maybe. But then some players are just too dumb to ever improve. We're discussing Andros Townsend over on the general transfer thread, I don't care whether it's Rafa Benitez, Sam Allardyce or Dean Saunders coaching him, he'll always be exactly the same player with exactly the same output.
I get the impression that Traore is one of those where people will still be talking about his "potential" in five years.
If we're signing him as someone to carry the ball and scare defenders by running at them, surely Costa is a better version of the same thing being as he genuinely creates and scores goals regularly? And we already own him.
