Aston Villa forward Bertrand Traore is reportedly set to join Basaksehir on a season-long loan deal as he nears an exit from the club.
The 26-year-old was limited to just 10 appearances last season through a combination of injury troubles and competition for places, while he was left out of the squad for our opening day defeat at Bournemouth last weekend.
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With a lack of opportunities likely for him again this year as Steven Gerrard looks set to predominantly use the likes of Philippe Coutinho and Emiliano Buendia among others ahead of Traore, an exit would seemingly be the ideal solution for all concerned.
According to Turkiye Spor, Traore is expected to seal a season-long loan move to Basaksehir, giving him the chance to play more regularly while Villa can trim the squad and perhaps look to strengthen elsewhere.
Gerrard himself noted following the conclusion of our pre-season tour of Australia that the squad was bloated, and so it was always expected that further exits were to come with Traore tipped to be one of those to potentially move on if an acceptable offer arrived.
Villa are seemingly prepared to green light a loan exit for now as a temporary solution, and so time will tell whether or not firstly the move goes through, and subsequently if it does, if Traore does enough to earn a permanent switch elsewhere next summer if there is still no room for him with us.
While there is no doubt that he is a highly talented player who has creative ability and flair to make things happen in the final third, we haven’t seen it consistently enough and particularly with the limited role that he has played, he appears to have struggled to earn a bigger role in training which ultimately has led to the current speculation.