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Aston Villa have reached an agreement with Barcelona over the permanent transfer of Adama Traore, the team have officially announced. The winger joins for a fee of £7 million, signing a five-year contract with the Birmingham club.
Born in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Adama joined La Masia, the youth academy of FC Barcelona, in 2004 from the neighborhood club, CE L’Hospitalet. He's spent his time there progressing through the various youth stages of the club – impressing everywhere.
Villa manager, Tim Sherwood, is thrilled at the prospect of having Adama play for this team. "He's someone I have been tracking for a long time.
"He's physically a man - and he has been for some time. He's a big powerful boy, very quick, dynamic and a maverick-type player. Those players are few and far between.
"We're delighted he has chosen Villa to continue his development."
Adama was on fire at Barcelona B in the Segunda Division scoring 8 goals in 41 appearances with 22 of those coming from the bench. He's quick, really quick, and is willing to take on defenders much like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Speaking on the move to the FA Cup finalists, Adama said, "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.
"I would also like to express my gratitude to everyone at FC Barcelona for helping me develop as a player and as a person."
"We're only going to improve in the seasons ahead"
Aston Villa have lost two very important players in Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph and are replacing most of the outgoing with youngsters-with-potential. Adama Traore is one such player being amongst the brightest of La Masia's academy knowing very well that it's nigh impossible to get into the senior squad any time soon.
“We lost two very influential proven Premier League footballers and it's up to me to make sure that the ones we bring into the club gel as quickly as possible," Tim Sherwood said.
Sherwood is likely to make more signings before the end of the transfer window but insists any move for Tottenham's Emmanuel Adebayor is out.
When asked on if whether his team are still relegation candidates, Sherwood said, “Yes, but we know it’s going to be difficult and we have to realise that. If we can consolidate this season, we're only going to improve in the seasons ahead because it's such a young group."
