Traore the enigma

[Premier Quality]

Don't think Bamba even broke a sweat in the first half last night, got tight on Traore and just outmuscled him or judged the flight on balls better than him.

Although yet again - he won free kicks, won the corner we scored from and made some decent runs and passes. He wasn’t amazing, but he was our most threatening of the front three. Imagine what could have happened if Costa had turned up and we could have had some interplay?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Yeah but that's missing two of the three formats. If that means Traore can do something against two out if 3 teams that's 25 games as an impact sub he may do something. He does offer something for me. I get you don't think the same

You can't change my own analogy to fit your argument, I'm afraid :icon_lol:

 

[Deleted Cyber]

You can't change my own analogy to fit your argument, I'm afraid :icon_lol:

No but your assessment is floored. Tait is brilliant in two formats and shit in one. All I have ever argued is use Traore to his strengths. That to me is impact sub.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Although yet again - he won free kicks, won the corner we scored from and made some decent runs and passes. He wasn’t amazing, but he was our most threatening of the front three. Imagine what could have happened if Costa had turned up and we could have had some interplay?

I wasn't saying he was completely useless, just disputing the claim that he terrifies defenders regardless, which clearly wasn't the case yesterday despite facing one of the ropiest backlines in the league.

Think the only times he's really put that much fear into anyone so far have been the late cameo against City, similar at West Ham with Cresswell's pathetic swipe at him and somewhat surprisingly when he did he best bit of defensive work so far chasing down Arsenal's backline, they looked panicky as fuck with him sprinting after them.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

No but your assessment is floored. Tait is brilliant in two formats and shit in one. All I have ever argued is use Traore to his strengths. That to me is impact sub.

No it isn't, it's an analogy based on Test cricket.

Make your own crappy one up if you want to, don't change what I said FFS :icon_lol: How does that make ANY sense?

 

[Deleted Cyber]

No it isn't, it's an analogy based on Test cricket.

Make your own crappy one up if you want to, don't change what I said FFS :icon_lol: How does that make ANY sense?

Ok. Traore is shit at five a side

 

[Premier Quality]

I think the issue for a fair few on here is not that everyone should bow down and worship the Adama - but that the level of criticism is unreasonable in comparison to others.

Adama was the best of our front three yesterday. He has the best xA stats of our If’s this season, but he’s the one who’s consistently called shit, a circus freak, a comedy footballer, whilst everyone else gets passed over with ‘they didn’t play well’.

For a forum that considers itself to like debate - it’s unbalanced and unreasonable. If Adama had played like Costa did yesterday, we’d never hear the end of it, but as it’s Costa, pretty much no comment, a ton of stuff about Adama instead.

Regardless of the performance, it’s Adama that gets called out.

It’s sad tbh.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Right, for the record, I didn't call Adama out, I took the time to rate every single player.

And you'd have to have some kind of "Oh, Dan hates Traore" agenda of your own to read all that and then go "he was much harder on Traore than Costa"

 

[SSB]

From what I have seen on Facebook he’s better at doing the baby shark than playing football.

 

[Freddeno]

Doc and Traore are scapegoats though, obviously..not that hard to see for a reasonably intelligent person..drunk or not..

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I'm not sure what's worse about that statement, saying that Doc is a scapegoat when NO-ONE has said anything negative about him at all regarding yesterday's game, or bigging up your own intelligence over others.

There's definitely one road you really don't want to go down.

 

[Tony Towner]

For me it's simple. 20 minutes left with the opposition looking for a goal then he's a good option to hit them on the break with. Any other scenario and I wouldn't have him on the pitch. As I said yesterday x,y or z player being out of form or poor isn't relevant. For example being better than Costa on Friday night, which he was, doesn't mean he had a good game.

 

[Freddeno]

Ok, maybe i went to far last night but im really tired of players not performing at all getting a free card compared to these two players.

 

[Freddeno]

My team for the next game:

Patricio

Doherty
Bennett
Coady
Boly
Vinagre(when Jonny is injured)

Neves
Dendoncker

Jota (10)

Jimenez
Traoré

 

[YoungWolf]

Ok, maybe i went to far last night but im really tired of players not performing at all getting a free card compared to these two players.

I don't think there is anyone getting a free pass.

Traore divides opinion - he divides my own!

Doherty didn't get any stick yesterday (he had a reasonable game compared to others) and despite a shocker of a performance the week before not many complained about him really.

 

[Freddeno]

I don't think there is anyone getting a free pass.

Traore divides opinion - he divides my own!

Doherty didn't get any stick yesterday (he had a reasonable game compared to others) and despite a shocker of a performance the week before not many complained about him really.

I think Costa and Moutinho could be candidates..but maybe just me

 

[Carrotdude]

I don’t think Traore was helped at all by how we played on Friday, mainly just aimless punts forward for him to chase or challenge for headers that he was never going to win. If we’d played through midfield and tried to get him running in the channels to split the centre backs we may have had more luck. Personally I think Jota and Cav are our best options either side of Raul for now due to their better movement and intelligence (despite Cav looking god awful against Huddersfield).

 

[MARKakaJIM]

I don’t think Traore was helped at all by how we played on Friday, mainly just aimless punts forward for him to chase or challenge for headers that he was never going to win. If we’d played through midfield and tried to get him running in the channels to split the centre backs we may have had more luck. Personally I think Jota and Cav are our best options either side of Raul for now due to their better movement and intelligence (despite Cav looking god awful against Huddersfield).

That's part of the problem you have with him, the lack of movement. So at the moment you can either try something akin to Friday, though please never take it to that extreme again, and let him chase things down or you have to play into his feet while he's standing still. Neither are ideal as they give opponents an opportunity to nullify him before the pace can even become a threat, Bamba did exactly that on Friday, just got really tight to him and more often than not he'd dispossessed him before he ever got chance to go through the gears.

Compare that to the goal at West Ham where he's already at top chat before the ball goes out to him and he was upstoppable, he needs to make runs like that more often, no-one is going to beat him in a foot race when he's at it but too often there's a window of opportunity before that.

 

[Freddeno]

Exactly, but i prefer his pace and unpredictability things compared to play that almost all teams figured out..you need to have different options

 

[Carrotdude]

That's part of the problem you have with him, the lack of movement. So at the moment you can either try something akin to Friday, though please never take it to that extreme again, and let him chase things down or you have to play into his feet while he's standing still. Neither are ideal as they give opponents an opportunity to nullify him before the pace can even become a threat, Bamba did exactly that on Friday, just got really tight to him and more often than not he'd dispossessed him before he ever got chance to go through the gears.

Compare that to the goal at West Ham where he's already at top chat before the ball goes out to him and he was upstoppable, he needs to make runs like that more often, no-one is going to beat him in a foot race when he's at it but too often there's a window of opportunity before that.

There was one piece of play on Friday where he beat a couple of players and got in a good position but completely scuffed his shot but I agree about the movement, I just want him making those runs like you say. In theory his pace should push back a defence to allow more space for others too.