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Adama Traore became a Middlesbrough sensation in the 2017/18 season

The Riverside Stadium has been treated to a selection of extraordinary attacking talent across recent years, but Middlesbrough supporters will not be forgetting about Adama Traore in a hurry.

Following relegation from the Premier League in the 2016/17 campaign, Boro have only secured two finishes inside the Championship's prized top-six positions amid numerous failed bids. One of those, of course, came in the immediate season after their relegation as Tony Pulis plotted an immediate return to the big time.

Boro ultimately fell short in what was surely up there among the most competitive and high-quality Championship seasons in recent history; Wolves had a star-studded, Jorge Mendes-backed Portuguese army at their disposal, Fulham had Aleksandar Mitrovic and Ryan Sessegnon and Aston Villa, who defeated Pulis' men across two legs in the play-off semi-finals, were led by one such Jack Grealish.

Middlesbrough, however, had their own star turn in Traore and that year, he truly vindicated the club's decision to strike an agreement with Aston Villa in 2016.

Adama Traore's electric 2017/18 Middlesbrough campaign

Traore had failed to score a single league goal in Boro's top-flight relegation campaign the season prior but was still rather impressive in his underlying numbers, although he really came into his own the following year and Championship defenders simply could not handle him. Most of the time, you simply had to pity them.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall next to a second-tier full-back learning of having to line up against Traore that season.

Put simply, he was electrifying. No player, before or after, has come close to matching the staggering number of successful dribbles that Traore chalked up. No player has been quite so frightening to watch at this level, either.

Traore scored five times and made a further ten assists for Pulis' men, but, as has been a recurring theme throughout the ex-Barcelona prodigy's career, such metrics fail to reflect the optimal degree of his influence on proceedings.

He regularly completed more than ten dribbles per match, which is astonishing and impressive in equal measure given that most top-end Championship wingers will complete between two and five at best.

A classic kick-and-run winger, Traore used his speed and powerful upper-body strength to blitz and bulldoze past virtually every Championship left-back to have been handed the unenviable and trying task of subduing the Spaniard.

Nobody could keep up with Traore and he was a pure joy to watch, with his levels of dynamism and 1v1 dribbling yet to be replicated again in the second-tier or at Middlesbrough.

Adama Traore's career success vindicates Middlesbrough, Aston Villa transfer agreement

Middlesbrough unearthed a real gem in Traore, and it has to go down as one of the most successful pieces of Teesside transfer business across the last decade. They sold him to Wolves for £18m in the summer of 2018, where it had inevitably become apparent that his talents would not wreak havoc on the Championship for the second season running.

Slowly but surely, Traore began to find his feet in the West Midlands and was a sensation in the 2019/20 campaign, recording seventeen direct goal involvements across all competitions and earning the interest of Europe's elite after tearing apart the Premier League's finest full-backs just as he had done in the North East.

That year in particular was as much of a vindication as it was a trip down memory lane for Middlesbrough, who would only have been full of pride to see a player they had developed so intricately blossoming into a top-flight star.

Traore is yet to rekindle such levels but has time on his side and can still reflect on a strong career which has even yielded a return to Barcelona in 2022. Now back in the Premier League with Fulham, the early indications suggest Traore is poised to really kick on and redeem his stock after an inconsistent couple of years.

It may be a surprise that Traore is still just 28 years of age, but he remains a top-quality player and few, if anyone at all, can subdue him at full-throttle. That was exactly the case at Middlesbrough and it would be a nice sweetener for supporters to see the former fan favourite return to his best this year.