The Metro links Aston Villa with Lazio’s Keita Balde Diao. The 20 year old Spanish winger arose through the Barcelona youth academy before making the move to Lazio where he has made 48 appearances scoring 6 goals. It’s believed that Aston Villa have made a bid of £7.8 million for the forward (who can also play on the left). Keita has apparently put in a transfer request after falling out with Lazio boss Stefano Pioli. Liverpool and Arsenal have also been linked with Keita.
Keita would be a great signing because he has loads of potential. But I’d be very surprised if this move actually happened. Firstly, this is reported by the Metro which isn’t the most reliable source out there and secondly, I’m not sure if this would actually happen. Apparently Keita’s price has been slashed since handing in that transfer request and £8 million would prove to be good business.
Meanwhile Adama Traore has officially signed for Aston Villa, the deal is reportedly £7 million and Traore has signed a 5 year deal with the club.
“It’s an honour for me to come here. It’s a club that showed interest in me from the first moment and made me feel important in terms of their project.
“I have spoken to the manager and have a very good impression of him and what he wants from me. All this have made this club my top attraction. – Adama Traore
At the age of 19, Traore is a big talent who will be eager to impress the fans. Traore has great technical ability and isn’t afraid to get passed any players. Traore will also play a big part for Aston Villa for many years to come. The squad itself is quite young, and will need time to develop. But hopefully, with enough game time they will all be able to develop into great footballers.
“He’s dynamic, very quick and a maverick-type player – you never know what he’s going to do next and I mean that as a compliment,”
“He’s a huge asset for this club. He can hurt the opposition and I’m delighted to bring him here.”
“He comes from a very good academy with Barcelona and I’ve known him a long time,” said Sherwood.
“He makes his mind up when he gets the ball and those players are rare – there aren’t many players in the Premier League that can do that.
“We’re getting him at the midway part of his development, he’s not the finished article by a long way but he can certainly help us out in the short-term and in the future.” – Tim Sherwood
There will most likely be a buy-back clause inserted for Barcelona’s sake and the deal might also give Barcelona the right to have any say should a transfer bid arrival for Traore in the future. Hopefully this isn’t some kind of 3-year loan deal with a buy out clause of just £10 million.
Nonetheless Traore is a brilliant signing. We currently don’t have anyone that can play out wide on the right (well Bacuna can, but I don’t see it happening) and I’m sure that Sherwood can develop Traore into a great player for the short and long term.
Signed a 5 year contract
But with a 3 year buy back clause – according to Sky which is pretty much standard practice for Barca. The upside is they obviously rate him – the downside, well Oohah’s better at that 🙂
Typical at least if he’s any good he won’t play against us for a sky 4 team
The link with Keita hasn’t only come from the Metro – it was doing the rounds on some foreign websites yesterday morning.
However those same reports mentioned a possible deal-breaker, or at least a potential problem to slow any transfer in treacle – apparently the kid doesn’t have an EU passport, despite having spent most of his life in Spain or Italy. The reports I read suggested that if Villa did pursue the deal, it could go all the way beyond the end of the transfer widow before it was finalised.
But I think the exemption after being in EU for many years will apply. Otherwise as a non Senior International he would not qualify for a work permit in Italy where he is now.
Exciting stuff at the moment and I hope we can all give them a bit of time to gel….. This change has been throughout the club… Mr Fox would not have joined us, unless he had total control and now this has happened and fatty Faulkner is a distant memory…
Great to see us being disciplined with Adebeyor, either move to Brum or stay where he is, under Lambert he would be staying at the Belfry, lashing it up in Belair’s each night.
Cant see us going for Keita, as he is a bit of a pain in the ass, with an attitude to fit.
Looking forward to tonight, I think we will get a draw
Great signing from what I can see. I look forward to seeing Traore in action. We may actually see the bulk of our goals coming from the midfield this season – crazy.
Anyone going to Villa tonight check the roads, its a nightmare out there, all over north ,south,east, and west.
Just put preview for tonight up 🙂
Adama Traore has been given the squad number 20 .
getting excited about tonight’s game .
I did wonder why when squad numbers were released last week, 20 was still free…..same with number 10 (I think it was 10, may have been 9) possibly reserved for what was a potential Adebayor??
I’m really excited about Traore, after having seen him on Youtube.
I know videos mean nothing, but if he can pull off those sorts of runs/dribbles in the Prem, he’ll add a couple of thousand ticket sales on his own.
YES! Very happy with the signing! Exciting prospect indeed!
sports witness reporting – Barcelona wanted a buyback clause. Aston Villa paid €10m to sign the player and Barcelona have a right to buy him back at any point over the next three summer transfer windows for a fee of €16m, which works out to be £11.4m.
better hope he is good but not so good that he can get into the barca squad lol