West Ham star Adama Traore has been ribbed by teammate Crysencio Summerville over “lies” and it will all make perfect sense to Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella.
West Ham threw away a 2-0 half-time lead to lose 3-2 at Chelsea last month but the game was just as notable for a mass brawl towards the end.
Central to that incident, for which both Chelsea and the Hammers have been hit with hefty fines, were Adama Traore and his compatriot Marc Cucurella.
In his first appearance for West Ham Traore lived up to his reputation as the strongest player in the Premier League.
Summerville exposes West Ham star Traore over weight-training “lies”
Cucurella also lived up to his reputation as an antagonist extraordinaire – and it did not end well for the full-back.
Now West Ham star Traore has been ribbed over “lies” and it will make perfect sense to Chelsea’s Cucurella.
Let’s hear it then – what have you made of Adama Traore so far? 🤔
Not much game time but have you seen anything that’s impressed you?
A graphic asking West Ham fans to grade Adama Traore's performance so far.
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Towards the end of the game at Stamford Bridge, Traore – now infamously – grabbed Cucurella and threw him off the pitch like a ragdoll.
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Traore has frequently claimed – including in an interview when he signed for West Ham before the Chelsea game – that he does not lift weights to maintain his muscular physique.
Adana Traore dribbles the ball during West Ham vs Chelsea.
Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images
Instead, the Spanish winger attributes his incredible size and strength to genetics and specific, explosive training regimes.
That myth has been well and truly busted, though, thanks to Crysencio Summerville.
West Ham’s flying Dutchman is one of the Premier League’s most in-form players right now.
Cucurella can lay claim to that title too with some excellent performances for Liam Rosenior’s side.
His substitution at half-time against the Hammers is widely regarded to have been key to changing the outcome of the game as Cucurella nullified Jarrod Bowen.
Traore was about to bench press double Cucurella’s body weight at West Ham training
The game is remembered more for the diminutive full-back being launched by Traore as tempers flared.
That has clearly not scared off the equally diminutive Summerville, though, after he exposed Traore by filming him getting ready to bench press a stacked bar at West Ham’s Rush Green training ground.
How impressed have you been?
And do you see a long-term future for him at the club?
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Summerville filmed himself smiling in the gym at Rush Green before flipping the camera to show Traore sat on the chest press bench, saying: “Huh, why are you lying?!”
“Why are you lying telling the people ‘I don’t do weights in the gym’?
“Let’s go, let’s go, show me.”
Traore tries to hide his face as he laughs at Summerville catching him red-handed.
Adama Traore during West Ham's Premier League game against Chelsea.
Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images
Cucurella, like the rest of us, will have been wondering how Traore attained his super-human strength without doing heavy weights in the gym.
So this will make perfect sense to the Chelsea ace, who can at least take some solace in the fact Traore was about to bench over £130kg.
That is double Cucurella’s reported body weight of 66kg.
No wonder the West Ham man was able to pick the Blues defender up and toss him around like he was taking out the rubbish in a moment which quickly went viral and endeared Traore to Hammers fans.
The pair have been reunited since the incident – remotely at least – when Cucurella cleared the air with Traore on a Spanish TV show.
Cucurella applauded and smiled when Traore appeared as a surprise guest by video link on the TV station he was being interviewed by.
There was no animosity between the London rivals, though, with Traore praising Cucurella and vice versa.
“He’s a really good guy,” Traoré said of Cucurella, as reported by ESPN.
“It’s nothing personal and there will never be. It all stays on the pitch, it was just the heat of the moment.
“I really didn’t mean to do it, it wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to talk to the linesman.”
Both players then broke into laughter as Cucurella responded: “Now I’m calm because there’s a screen between us.”
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