Adama Traore Was 'Banned From Paying Club Fines' At Middlesbrough, Things Got 'Out Of Hand'

He certainly made an impact on the pitch with his lightning pace and strength, but his timekeeping skills off it had much to be desired.

Despite living two minutes away from the club's training ground, Traore was always late. And in a recent interview with Ladbrokes, former teammate Stewart Downing was asked who was fined most when the Spaniard immediately came to mind.

"One player comes to mind straight away when I think of the biggest culprit for club fines: Adama Traore.

"A great, great lad, but he had absolutely no sense of time. He didn't drive, and he lived right next to the training ground so he'd come to training on his little scooter, and he'd always be late. We'd all be travelling from 40 minutes or so away, he's two minutes around the corner and he was always late."

Downing, who enjoyed two spells at Middlesbrough during his career, went on to tell a story of when Traore missed the bus on matchday.

"One time he went home for an afternoon nap and we were leaving on the coach for a game later on in the day," Downing said. "Garry Monk just told the driver to leave him because he wasn't waking up.

"He was a really good lad and we all tried to help him as much as we could - we'd just be saying, 'Adama, come on... just set your alarm on your phone."

Fines were clearly not working, so the Middlesbrough players got together and made a decision.

"I think he just liked paying fines," the former Liverpool winger added. "In the end, it got too out of hand; we decided between us we just couldn't take the amounts of money from him that he was having to pay us in fines.

"We couldn't just keep fining him, it clearly wasn't working, so we just had to literally drag him on the bus. He was a great lad, but he just had zero concept of time."

After a far from spectacular spell in the North East, Traore improved at Premier League side Wolves before returning to former club Barcelona in January.

He joined the Catalan club in a loan deal until the end of the season, with a £29m option to make the deal permanent.