This weekend, Wolves head to Villa Park for a Saturday evening showdown with neighbours Villa – the second successive year the fixture has been played behind closed doors, after the visitors won 1-0 there back in June. Traore played his part in Leander Dendoncker’s winning goal that day, but now is looking to bounce back from disappointment at the Etihad on Tuesday, which Traore says the group have been learning from in the latter part of the week.
On no fans for the West Midland clash
“It’s been massively different for everyone. I think without the fans, it’s a little bit sad, because football is for the fans. When the fans aren’t there, they take a big part of football.
“I hope the fans come back. How I see it is, we play for the fans, and the happiness is winning for everyone, not only the players, that’s the best thing of football. Not only players show character, the fans too.
“About Aston Villa, I’ve been there before, I know it’s a great team, but we will fight to win.”
On Boly being back in the squad
“Willy Boly has been working hard and I think we need each player, whether it’s Willy Boly, Marcal, [Daniel] Podence, all these players who are out at the moment, each player is important and gives quality inside the team. I hope he’ll [Boly] be there.”
Something special from Adama Traore...
— Wolves (@Wolves) February 21, 2021
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On a tough City defeat
“I think the team fought through the game, we had a plan, we followed the plan. But in the end City are in good form, a great team, so I think we make some mistakes and teams like City punish you, but we learn from it, improve as a team, grow and continue to fight.
“We followed the plan of the coach and tried to do our best. It worked until the last ten minutes, we made some mistakes, but I think we have to keep working, seeing where we can grow and keep learning what is going to make us better – that’s the important thing.”
On learning from mistakes
“The team has been fighting well, each player has been fighting well in his position, I think everyone can mistakes, football has errors, and when you make an error, they have a chance. Our main focus is learning what can make us better than the last game and that will make us grow like a team.”
On working with Nuno
“Nuno has shown me since day one different things, trying to work with me, to be a player to help the team the best I can. I’ve been playing different positions, and this made me grow like a player. They demand different things and that made me grow and this is the mentality I have – I will keep going.”
