Julen Lopetegui was apparently absolutely gutted when Boubacar Traore got injured during Wolves’ mid-season trip to Marbella.
The midfielder has had an injury-hit first season at Molineux, after joining the club from FC Metz on deadline day last summer.
Traore had been looking decent for Wolves just before the World Cup.
He had started to see more and more minutes, after mostly warming the bench for the first couple of months of the season.
He really started to make an impression for Wanderers, and the break for the World Cup arguably came at completely the wrong time for him personally.
As the tournament was going on, the Wolves squad flew out to Marbella to get some warm weather training in with new manager Julen Lopetegui.
Unfortunately for Traore, he suffered an injury during the trip.
This would pretty much ruin the rest of his season.
Traore underwent surgery, which put him on the sidelines for a while.
The player has actually been fit for a couple of months now.
But as Wolves were in a really precarious position in the Premier League, the manager turned to sharper and more experienced players.
Lopetegui admitted that it was difficult to give Traore minutes.
In the end, £10 million star Traore made cameo appearances in each of Wolves’ last two games.
Traore was a topic of conversation in the Express & Star’s final podcast of the season, and journalist Liam Keen revealed that Lopetegui was actually gutted to lose Traore to injury.
He said: “(Traore was) a player Lopetegui really, really loved when they went to Marbella on that warm weather training camp. He then picked up an injury and he was gutted when Boubacar got injured.
“Since then, they signed Joao Gomes and Mario Lemina. They had a lot of midfielders. Joe Hodge was doing really well at the time. Boubacar then had another setback. He had a bit of a nightmare.”
Boubacar Traore seemingly has a big fan in Julen Lopetegui – hopefully his second season will be much better
Traore’s first season with Wolves was really ruined by his injury problems.
He got so unlucky and it’s such a shame for him.
But it sounds very much as though he’s a player on Lopetegui’s radar.
Wolves are likely to lose a couple of midfielders this summer, with Ruben Neves and Joao Moutinho the most likely to leave.
Theoretically, this will mean more opportunities for Traore.
And Wolves fans would love for him to make a big impression in his second term. He really did look very promising just before the season suspended for the World Cup. And Wolves officials are said to be very excited about him.