The 21-year-old Chelsea forward has reportedly signed a £17.5 million transfer deal with Ligue 1 club Lyon.
According to a report by The Sun, Bertrand Traore has become the latest youngster to leave Premier League champions Chelsea right after England starlet Dominic Solanke signed for Liverpool last month.
The young striker helped Ajax reach great heights after joining on a season-long loan deal and is now set to leave Stamford Bridge having been pushed down the pecking order under Antonio Conte.
The Burkina Faso international joined Chelsea back in January 2014 and spent the first 18 months of his Blues career on loan at Vitesse, scoring 17 goals in 48 Eredivisie appearances.
In fact, it was current Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho who brought the youngster back to Stamford Bridge for the 2015-16 season but even then he failed to get as much playing time.
It was under caretaker manager Guus Hiddink that he received most of his first-team minutes at Stamford Bridge and enjoyed a pretty good run of four goals in five appearances from January 31st to March 5th. Despite that tiny glimmer of hope, Traore’s future at Chelsea dimmed again once Antonio Conte took over.
While Conte did assess Traore’s capabilities along with several other Chelsea players on arrival at the club last summer, he failed to allot a position that fit Traore. The situation looked rather bleak for the striker after the £33 million signing of Michy Batshuayi from Marseille which prompted Traore to head on loan to Ajax.
Traore impressed on Ajax’s surprise run to the Europa League final and scored 13 goals in 39 appearances last season, and he also became the third loan player to be sold by Chelsea so far this summer, following the £17 million deal which made Juan Cuadrado’s stay at Juventus permanent and Christian Atsu’s £6 million move to Newcastle.
As far as Traore is concerned, the striker is now looking to carve out a long-term role for himself and he will be able to do that at Lyon wherein his previous loan experiences will also come in handy.
Meanwhile, the money acquired from the sales of these loan players will result to quite a huge amount which Chelsea are likely to re-invest in purchasing the high-profile players on Conte’s wish list. Monaco midfielder Tiemoue Bakayoko is one such player who has been a long-time target and is likely to be one of the first arrivals.
