Potential is a dangerous word in football, especially when the player in mind is a 29-year-old attacker linked with West Ham United despite failing to score or assist a single Premier League goal all season.
If he has not turned that potential into anything more tangible already – with his 30th birthday now only two months away – then what chance do West Ham United really have of making the penny drop at such a late stage in his development?
That is the question on the minds of many Hammers supporters as Nuno Espirito Santo lines up an Adama Traore reunion ahead of the January transfer window.
Hammers News reported at the beginning of October that the West Ham boss wanted the Fulham speedster, having worked with Traore when he was producing the best football of his rather odd career at Wolves.
Now, others are starting to join in. Sky Sports’ Rob Dorsett, for instance, reported on Tuesday that Nuno retains a ‘very good’ relationship with Traore, whose Fulham contract is due to expire next summer.
Jermaine Pennant, the former Arsenal, Liverpool, Stoke City and Portsmouth winger, can see some logic in the idea though.
Adama Traore during Fulham FC v West Ham United FC - Premier League
Photo by Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Offside via Getty Images
Jermaine Pennant backs Nuno Espirito Santo as West Ham United eye Fulham’s Adama Traore
Speaking to talkSPORT while Traore awaits his first goal contribution of the current Premier League campaign, Pennant says that those questioning the one-time Barcelona battering ram should defer to a coach who knows him better than anyone.
Furthermore, while Traore is unlikely to turn into relentless goals-and-assists machine at this stage, it was under Nuno at Molineux when he produced the best numbers of his Premier League career.
MORE WEST HAM STORIES
“I think it would be a good move. When you have a manager who is so adamant on getting a certain player, a certain individual, I think that is for a reason,” says Pennant, feeling that Traore’s fearsome acceleration alone is worth the punt for a coach whose success at Nottingham Forest last season was built around fast transitions via jet-heeled wingers.
“We know how powerful he is. Probably one of the quickest players I’ve seen. If you can nurture that and bring in some end product, there is a good player there.
“You can play him on the left, absolutely. [Traore is] a roadrunner. Speed, in this game right now, if you’ve got speed, you can go a long way. You can play him down the middle. Nuno can obviously see something there and thinks, ‘I can get an end product out of him’.
“When he was at Wolves with Nuno, there was a bit of end product! I guess Nuno is thinking he can get something out of him.”
Nuno wants more speed at West Ham with strikers and midfielders targeted
Traore scored four goals and set up nine more under Nuno in the 2019/20 season. In fact, he was so electrifying in Old Gold that Spanish giants Barcelona opted to bring their one-time La Masia graduate back to La Liga, if only for a brief spell.
It is no secret, meanwhile, that Nuno wants more pace in his West Ham team.
Nuno has told the Hammers board to bring in a striker capable of offering more running-power and agility than his current options. He is also reported to want a pacey, box-to-box number eight to fit in alongside his new-look, and highly-exciting midfield partnership of Mateus Fernandes and Freddie Potts.
“The midfielders [Potts and Fernandes] work hard and they are complementing each other. In the middle of the park, we have a lot of good options and the boys are doing really well,” Nuno said after Saturday’s 3-2 victory over Burnley, a game in which summer signing Soungoutou Magassa also impressed off the bench.
“Arriving to the Premier League for any player is really difficult. We have a lot of players who we need to be patient with. I think it’s a small step, Another day where we have achieved something at London Stadium which means a lot. But we will not get carried away.
“I think we are getting closer. It is not about the team, it is about the squad. The players that came in really helped the team. Magassa, fresh legs, his energy, he helped the team in the middle of the park.
“It is about trying to find this balance, the combinations that we need.”