When Adama Traore joined Aston Villa from Barcelona in 2015 for a not-inconsiderable fee of £7m, his new manager Tim Sherwood described the flying winger as a ‘bit of Messi and Ronaldo’. Four years later his former team-mate Micah Richards looked back on the 19-year-old’s troubled time in the Midlands, labelling him ‘quick and thick’.

These are startling extremes, each as unfair as the other, but while it’s justifiable to highlight their inappropriateness it’s also worth pointing out something that slightly excuses them: namely there is very little ordinary or middle-of-the-road about Traore.

There is the Spaniard’s blistering pace for starters. In that same interview Richards – hardly a slouch – admits that he once challenged the teen to a foot-race and was granted a twenty yard advantage. He lost.

Coming through at La Masia the player was given the nickname ‘Usain Bolt’, while Olympic sprint champion Darren Campbell once advised Traore to slow down when in possession. It’s worth pausing here to re-read that. He was advised to slow down.

That was at Middlesbrough, Traore's next destination after finding his opportunities limited at Villa to just 262 minutes all told, and in the North East he proved to be a revelation even prompting headlines such as this one in the Telegraph – ‘Emulating Messi: How dribble-king Adama Traore is following the example of his former team-mate’.

Yet recalling his days managing the wide-man at Boro, Tony Pulis recently revealed that he would deploy him on the wing closest to the dug-out in order to bark out instructions throughout the game.

There are those same extremes again. A comparison to Messi and the insinuation that Traore is not the fizziest can in the fridge.

With his raw pace and physique of a line-backer, it is little surprise that this heightened talent capable of terrorising defences and his own manager in equal measure has gained a reputation as an impact sub in recent years.

Last season for Wolves - who he joined for £18m the summer before last - he made a staggering 21 league appearances from the bench and from that a feeling grew that a player of such extremities could not be influential across ninety whole minutes: that he was instead a human hand grenade thrown into the action to capitalise from covering fire. Or at least that used to be the perception.

“We’re building a player”. That was what Nuno Espirito Santo said earlier this term on his star whose attributes make him a potential world-beater but by means of out-and-out wing-play that contrasts with Wolves’ propensity to use wing-backs.

And you have to say that the Portuguese coach has been as good as his word.

On 13 occasions this season Traore has been unleashed from the outset in the Premier League, no longer looking to the bench for direction and instead remaining well-drilled, calm and in control.

His form has seen him called up to the Spanish squad prior to an enforced withdrawal. His form has seen him score both goals as Wolves stunned Manchester City at the Etihad, each goal slotted home with assurance. His form has seen him become one of the most improved performers in the division with five direct goal contributions in 15 appearances and a series of impressive displays.

He is no longer a peripheral phenomenon and let’s hope that the days of being compared to the global greats are long gone too.

Adama Traore is exhilarating and entertaining and consistently so. That is more than enough to be getting on with.