As well as churning out stories of Adama Traore heading North East to Middlesbrough, the local papers of the area seem to suggest that the ex-Barca player’s rather random destination to Teeside is connected to the resurrection of Villa attempting to acquire the services of Albert Adomah, which had only recently seemed dead in the water.
The Northern Echo stated:
‘Adomah, who was left out of Boro’s 18-man squad for Sunday’s goalless draw at West Brom, is due to travel to Villa’s training ground tomorrow’
Makes sense. Sometimes 1 + 1 does = 2.
It does seem logically that Traore is being offered as a clincher to the deal with a return to the Premier League no doubt enticing to the player himself. No team likes to shed key resources with little time to search out replacements, so for Middlesbrough this is potentially a like-for-like swap.
Adomah is in the last year of his contract and has been trying to a) get a better deal at Boro or b) find a new home. So Middlesbrough will see the potential of coming up trumps financially in this deal from their point of view.
The big question is how does the actual deal broker down? Which player will be valued more highly or will Xia be happy with a direct swap just to cut his loses on Traore, but get a more eager player in his place?
Obviously Barcelona will have to be consulted regarding their first refusal buy-back clause on Traore, but that surely is nothing but a formality.
Then it’s a case of persuading Adomah to do one more term of duty in the Championship. Waving money at people normally helps in such discussions.
With Tony Xia previously mentioning on social media the club were trying to do a deal in terms of bringing in an attacking-midfielder, the Traore clue is a big indication that it is Adomah who is coming Villa’s way.
UTV
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