The final score at Molineux was 2-1. Not in terms of goals, admittedly. By the more conventional measure, Liverpool won 1-0. But they had two players booked for fouling Adama Traore, while Wolves only registered one shot on target.
The Traore paradox may be the Wolves paradox. One of the most explosive attacking players feels unstoppable – by legal methods, anyway – but he and Wolves are rather too stoppable. The great entertainer plays for perennial low scorers. Only Norwich have fewer goals than Wolves this season. Traore is responsible for none of their 12.
Saturday’s trip to Manchester City offers a reminder of Traore’s most devastating displays and an explanation of why his name is often mentioned in conjunction with elite clubs, even though he has been comfortably outscored by Lewis Dunk over the last three years.
Go back to 2019/20 and Traore got a career-best four Premier League goals. Three were against City, denting their bid for a third successive title, as Wolves registered two wins: 2-0 at the Etihad, 3-2 at Molineux. Pep Guardiola had previewed the second game by exclaiming: “He’s a motorcycle.” City couldn’t let his tyres down. He beat the best, and hardly scored against the rest.
Traore can seem the roadrunner extraordinaire. He dribbled past the most players in last season’s Premier League, some 173 (he is second this season, despite spending some of it on the bench). When he didn’t get past them, it’s because 17 opponents were booked for fouling him, another divisional high. But he finished the campaign with a mere two league goals as Wolves, despite his ball-carrying prowess and sudden surges upfield, were dullards.
This season, Traore has tormented Manchester United, in a display of viscerally thrilling solo runs, and scored no goals. He has had 21 shots, the second most of anyone who has failed to find the net. As he has no assists either, he has been perhaps the most threatening player not to have any actual threat.
It conforms to a wider trend. Over his Premier League career, Traore has seven goals from 154 games and 139 shots. His five percent chance conversion rate is miserable; indeed, barely a quarter of his efforts are on target. He does show an occasional ability to rattle the woodwork, as he did against Burnley last season, but it is merely another way Traore can be spectacular without scoring.
At 25, it feels too late to effect a transformation into a prolific scorer. But, even in an age when some wingers outscore strikers, Traore would be a formidable player if he could get 10 goals a season. Probably he would not be at Molineux: as it is, Nuno Espirito Santo wanted a reunion at Tottenham, albeit starting with a loan but other suitors could be put off by the reality that selecting Traore involves burdening others with a greater responsibility for scoring. An almost unique player - only Allan Saint-Maximin and Wilfried Zaha can get close to his dribbling statistics – can’t do the fundamental task of a forward.
Bruno Lage has struggled to resolve the Traore conundrum, dropping him at time, picking him at others. Pick Traore and Wolves only have two potential scorers on the pitch and, since Hwang Hee-chan’s golden run in front of goal ended, it basically comes down to Raul Jimenez. Wolves have one goal in their last 508 minutes; in a season when Daniel Podence, Trincao and Fabio Silva are all yet to get off the mark, Traore is not the only cause. But he feels the strangest case, because he is the mesmeric, turbo-charged runner City could be forgiven for fearing. An idiosyncratic figure has carved out his own niche, as the outstanding Premier League forward who can’t score.
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