I couldn’t believe it either, but this season, down the right flank, Emerson Royal is the 6th best crosser of the ball in the Premier League. It has to be said that in this particular discipline, in this area of the pitch, that the competition isn’t exactly packed with world-class talent.
I made the point recently that Emerson’s crossing was hit-and-miss, but it was the volume of his attempted crosses that ultimately outweighed the good that he did.
If we look at a bigger picture and look for overall accuracy at crossing (opposed to just down that pesky right-hand side, then Adama Traore’s accuracy is far superior. This comes with a huge caveat, however. Traore is the 16th most accurate crosser of the ball in the division, which puts him way above Royal’s pay grade. Emerson doesn’t even make the top 30 list.
Conclusion
This is, to a large degree, the epitome of two bald men fighting over a comb. Emerson makes lots of attempted crosses, and Traore makes fewer, but with greater success.
Neither of these men are anywhere close to what fans of a side housed in a billion-pound stadium might ideally wish to watch. The Brazilian is 22 and the Spaniard is 25. Without knowing the personalities involved, it is impossible to guess which of the two might be easiest to train and nurture to the required standard.
That said, Traore has improved a little since last season and has in previous seasons nudged his accuracy rate closer to 50% at Wolves. This is extremely speculative at best, but one might argue that this shows a capacity to be better.
For me, I’d always advise bald men to shave it all off and invest in some good hats.
He makes the ball stick in the oppo third and causes no small degree of panic – for that alone I see him as an upgrade on at least 5 of our current wing options
Bale was never a flat track bully in his prime. I remember him scoring against Arsenal repeatedly. United. And a winner against the champs Chelsea. Big match player… I can’t see Adam evolving like Bale, he’s 25 already.
Nothing wrong with inverted wingers either.. Prime Messi and Bale and Nedved are all good examples.
I hope the Traore rumours aren’t true… Unless Conte wants him of course. It’s about backing the manager… Look what he did with Victor Moses who was an average premier league right winger. Converted him to first choice right wing back and wins the league at Chelsea. The next season signs him for Inter and wins serie A straight away… ST Maxim is great but I’m not sure he’d fit in to Contes system.. I expect he will be switching to a 352 more often over the 343 by next season so will be looking for a decent strike partner for Kane….. I can’t believe Trippiers at the Barcodes, we could have done with him back.
While we debate signing Traore, liverpool fans are dying for them to sign him
May be true—of course, my first memory of Sissoko was him scoring a cracker against us for Newcastle. That was false advertising.
Being an old fart, can we please go back to fullbacks who can defend and wingers who can beat a man and cross from the byline! Furthermore, I would prefer never to hear the phrase inverted wingers again. The left footed players on the left and vice versa on the right. Football really is a simple game and when I see a substitute come on, incidentally, why do they take so long to get ready from the bench, it makes me pi** myself when I see the coach bringing out some form of spread sheet to instruct the player. I think Harry Redknapp had it about right when he told his substitut, Roman Pavyulchenko ” to run about a bit”. Great coaching! For the record, I think Traore and Royal are both cr*p. Our criteria for buying any player in the future should be solely based on the assumption that they would get into any top four side. These two don’t qualify. Best facilities in the world with the lousiest CEO.
Also agree with England Mike, St Maximinin is the man for me. Time for our congenital liar of a chairman to step up to the plate and be a man for once in his life.
I cannot remember Emerson ever connecting with a cross
From my memories of the Rednapp days playing defensive sides that sat deep to try and achieve a 0-0 it was usually Gareth Bale that unlocked the defence with one moment of pure brilliance. He was a flat-track bully. He did it last season too. Maybe Traore can be that beast that helps unlock a stubborn defence.
Although his stats in assists and actual goals are not spectacular, as you say his stats for everything else such as actions that led to goals, dribbles, runs etc are very good. Sometimes we get too bogged down in goal stats, Doherty had good stats and that’s why we bought him, but it’s obvious to see that he is a duffer. Traore on the other hand literally terrifies defences to the extent they put 2 men on him to prevent him succeeding, and yet he often does.
When it comes to having him or Royal attacking down the right there can be only one logical choice. Royal is a purely defensive player bought for Nuno. Traore will be bought for Conte, and if Conte wants him then that is good enough for me.
Plus of course he’s cheap, which means the ultimate skinflint in Daniel Levy will for once support his manager!
I’m warming to the idea of Traore. He knows the league, he’s experienced and on his day he’s an absolute beast. I’d be interested to see “goal involvement” numbers, because for example he was instrumental in Wolves’ winner against United the other week, even if he didn’t officially get the assist.
I think he’ll be more inclined to carry the ball to the by-line or into the box, plus with the bonus that he can play in a more traditional attacking role if need be.
All in all I think he will be an upgrade on what we we have, and if it’s him or Royale I’d take him all day long.
I’d take my chances with a wheelie bin out there instead of Doherty. We should never sign another Arsenal fan. Him and Darren Bent! Do me a favour.
Traore is a player that will make fans sit up, invariably he will fluff his lines though and it will infuriate us if he was to sign. However, I would rather have Traore on the pitch than Bergwijn that is for sure. If we could sell the latter for £10-15m then Traore comes in cheap. His pace is on another level, but I don’t think he can improve his crossing/finishing that much. He has had plenty of time to do this, it would be akin to asking Sissoko to improve his shooting or asking Ndombele to run!
Playing Doherty on the left wing should be a criminal offense. I’d take my chances with Harvey White there when Sess gets hurt again and Regy not available.
Conte talks a lot about finding the balance in the squad because good managers know that balanced sides are difficult to beat. While everyone seems to understand this concept, the follow-on from, that the way to win consistently is to unbalance your opponent, seems to be much less well understood. We have struggled against organized sides for the past few seasons because we are unable to unbalance our opponents. We used to have pace on the wings (Walker, Rose) and excellent passers (Toby, Jan, Christian) and we consistently unbalanced organized sides with the combination of pace and passing.
Those players were never adequately replaced. We have one (fit) CB (Dier) who is an above-average passer and a CM trio whose best passer is possibly above average (Winks). It is not a surprise then that Kane—our best passer—has had to both create and score over the past few seasons.
Bringing this back to Traore, despite his lacking end-product, he is nothing if not a serious destabilizing threat that opposing managers will have to account for. Merely by virtue of his presence on the pitch, he will unbalance organized sides who have to have a plan to deal with his pace and dribbling. That means tucking in a winger or shading a CB towards his side. That means gaps open up elsewhere for our other players to exploit. That means even if he is not directly assisting on goals he is creating opportunities for other players to take. I hope we sign him and I think he is going to be a holy terror that opens the pitch up for Harry and Sonny. If he actually can learn to cross the ball and stay composed in front the net, all the better.
Just to add Traore is so capable of causing problems for defences even if his cross or shot is wayward, he would give a very different look to our attacks and provide some genuine excitement. In our current climate he is probably too much of a risk so not worth pursuing sadly, however I cannot help to stress how much I would take Saint-Maximin at any cost.
He fell over crossing the road.
Where’s Doherty on that list? hahaha
If Traora arrives he will improve our squad at very minimum, but will be in the first 11 a lot.
20 mil for a prem ready ,fit ,25 and with the right attitude seems like a bargain in today’s market .
Look at some off the money we have wasted on dross ,,the L’ French turd x2 at least then add tanguy and lose celso recently .
He might not be perfect and I’m sure frustrate us at times but I’m sure we will be cheering his name on many occasions,,mainly as he just goes for it !
If Conte can do his magic and he wants to come with no levy grieve let’s just get it done.
Who else is on the shopping list? and that’s not even involving the player wanting or levy
I think the overall standard associated with this skillset of crossing the ball has somehow deteriorated in recent years with the emphasis being put on WB’s to provide the service from wide positions. They are so inconsistent, not only do they invariably fail to deliver quality balls into the box but also fail to get it past the defender, which is so poor imo.
Apparently Paratici loves him and has been chasing him for some time so it appears he’s not even a Conte pick. Whatever about having to mend and make do with the current squad it apears we are buying a winger to repurpose as a wing-back. Why the hell can’t we for once just buy the finished article who is not going to need half a season to get on message and is good to go. I can hear it now, ‘needs time blah blah, not his natural position blah blah
I’m not convinced by this guy. Sure he is very fast and strong, and you make a good point about drawing a couple of players to him to avert the threat he poses, but often his extreme speed finds him in acres of space and with time to put in a very telling cross, but I am afraid the results are mostly disappointing. Hopefully Conte can do for him what he did with Moses.
Wingers #one job is go down the flanks and put the ball in the box before the defense gets set #2 keep the opposing wingback pin and not being able to drop in and help the defenders #3 Make the midfield and wingers comeback deeper to help than they want so your attackers have more room to operate.This nullify counter attacks as they defend deeper. Basic footballing concept long before you applied tactical nous. Am not sure asking a wingback to go play defense them busting it down to go put balls in the box should be required. So if Traore had a worse number than Royal he has no business being a winger in any professional league. The reason kids like Bryan Gil will struggle trying to play and do everything than being a flat-out left winger who runs at defense and is very skillful. He can’t because now he has to go inside to contend jamming the space and finding more traffic from the defense and tip toeing around not getting into Son and Harry’s way. It is always square peg in round hole to me.
I agree that neither is worthy of our Star Ship Enterprise Stadium, but few of our squad are. Kane, Son and Lloris are. Discussing the rest has been done to death so I’m not going there.
With regard to who is the better player (not necessarily the best crosser) between these 2 I don’t think it is hard to decipher. I would go with who the opposition would least like to play against. With Watford allowing Royal more space than a Polar Bear in the Arctic we can safely assume they didn’t see him as a threat. I don’t think any left wingers quake in their boots either. Traore is a menace when given the space and an easy outlet when being pressed. He invites the ong ball in that instance. Traore’s end product is akin to Aaron Lennon’s, as HH stated previously, but I just love the unpredictability of him. If he did sign I might be tearing my hair out at the lad’s innate ability to be totally rubbish for no reason. He might be a spare part in games where teams park the bus too, but so are the vast majority of our lot. His speed terrifies defences and that weapon is oh so rare.
The lad Lamptey is a good player and we should be in for Digne too.
I think one big plus with Traore is he will often draw 2 defenders to him because of his undoubted threat thus creating space for our attackers elsewhere.
By contrast Royal is about as scary to defenders as the Easter bunny.
Hopefully Conte can recreate the form shown by Traore at Wolves not so long ago. TBF his stats this season have been affected by him mostly being on the bench de to his contract wrangle.