Wolves can make the most of Adama Traore exit with one of two Barcelona starlets heading their way

Dan Burnham 06 Mar 2022 7:58 PM

Adama Traore kneels down at his Barcelona unveiling

Wolves can make the most of Adama Traore’s exit with one of two Barcelona starlets reportedly heading in the other direction.

Traore has impressed since swapping the Premier League for La Liga. He has registered four assists across six appearances in all competition. And TEAMtalk exclusively revealed this week Barca are already in talks with Wolves about making his loan move permanent.

Following on from that, Spanish outlet Sport have claimed they don’t want to exercise their €30million (£25m) option to buy.

Instead, they want Traore’s agent Jorge Mendes, who has strong links to the Midlands club, to broker a swap deal.

The first option would involve winger Trincao. He is already at Molineux on loan for the season but is due to return to the Camp Nou this summer.

Bruno Lage has barely used him in recent weeks so whether he’d want him remains to be seen. If not, there is an alternative.

And that would be fellow 22-year-old Riqui Puig. Wolves have been linked with the attacking midfielder in the past and ‘still have him on the table’.

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Puig has found his game time limited amongst a lenghty list of options Xavi has in his postion.

He could therefore seek a move away. There is a third option otherwise, which would see Barca try to convince Wolves to extend Traore’s contract and loan him again.

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Bruno Lage criticises Wolves man

Meanwhile, Lage has launched a scathing rant at Wolves defender Ki-Jana Hoever while highlighting a major training ground issue.

The 20-year-old was deputising for the injured Nelson Semedo against Crystal Palace on Saturday but was forced off through injury after just 25 minutes. Lage’s side were already a goal down at the stage and then conceded again in the 2-0 defeat.

The Portuguese manager asserted that Hoever had brought the injury on himself because of a lack of preparation.

“Ki is a good example of the young kids, they want everything to happen [now],” said Lage in his post-match press conference.

“When you are out and your teammate is playing, and you are not training at the intensity, you are not preparing yourself and after, when you have a chance, these kinds of things happen.

“I have too many kids in my team that sometimes don’t work the way they should work.

“They do not prepare the way they should prepare and after, when they come inside [the team], these kinds of things happen.

“When they are in training they are thinking a lot, ‘Oh I’m not playing’, and I said to them in the first day when I started, ‘We are here, you need to continue to work. The first target is to work and improve.’

“Injuries can happen, but this one happened because he was not prepared because Ki sometimes doesn’t work in the same intensity.”