Player #881 for Aston Villa, Adama Traoré Diarra known as Adama Traoré played as a winger for the club in Villa’s Premier League relegation season of 2015-16 and during the Football League Championship campaign of 2016-17 making 12 appearances and scoring once.

Traoré was born in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain on 25 January 1996.

Tim Sherwood’s Villa had signed Traoré from FC Barcelona for £9,000,000 on 14 August 2015 and his arrival was one of a number of sub-standard Villa signings that maligned the club throughout the 2015-16 campaign and drove Villa to their first relegation in nearly 30 years. Players such as Traoré as well as Micah Richards, Jordan Veretout, Jordan Ayew, Rudy Gestede, Joleon Lescott and José Ángel Crespo were brought to the club despite being nowhere near the standard for a top flight player and Villa paid the price.

Traoré made his debut appearance for Villa on Saturday, 22 August 2015 aged 19 as a 69’ substitute for Carlos Sánchez in the 1-2 defeat at Crystal Palace.

Traoré made his first start for Villa in the following game - the 5-3 League Cup 2nd Round win over Notts County on Tuesday, 25 August 2015 in which he scored his only goal for the club on 24’.

Where it really mattered however, in the league, made a total of nine appearances in 2015-16, all as a substitute, and the sequence that followed was Lost, Lost, Lost, Lost, Lost, Lost, Drew, Lost, Lost, Lost.

Traoré was surprisingly still with Villa the following season and played under new boss Roberto Di Matteo as a 74’ substitute for Jordan Ayew in the 3-0 win over Rotherham United on Saturday, 13 August 2016 - the only game in which he was involved that ended in victory.

Although relegation was not solely on the shoulders of a youngster such as Traoré he became a poster boy for the over inflated ego and disconnection of the footballing stock Villa were trading in and no tears were lost when he was moved on to Middlesbrough in August 2016 for a fee of £7,430,000 aged 20.

Traoré had proved trouble on and off the pitch and an abject failure at Villa. At Middlesbrough he continued his headless chicken style with no end product. Premier League new boys Wolverhampton Wanderers paid a scarcely believable £18m for Traoré’s services in 2018 but by the end of 2020, now aged 24, Traoré still could not find end product and had gone over 20 games without scoring or creating a goal in Wolves’ attacking side under Nuno Espírito Santo who, like all his managers before him, wondered if there was really a player inside Traoré.

Traoré had played under Tim Sherwood, Rémi Garde, Eric Black and Roberto Di Matteo.