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Gerard Houllier bought Djimi Traore from Second Division Laval despite competition from Paris St Germain, AC Milan, Parma and Lazio.

Traore seemed nervous enough when his big chance arrived at the start of the 2000/2001 season when he was put in the unfamiliar role of left-back. He was loaned to France the following season and gained valuable experience with El Hadji Diouf's Lens and almost won the French championship. He returned a stronger character and ready for a second chance. Traore found his feet when he was moved to his natural centre-half position when Henchoz got injured. He excelled sometimes as left-back under Benitez.

He will be forever remembered as a member of the European cup-winning team in Istanbul, and it was a fantastic way to end the season for the Frenchman after his rather unfortunate FA Cup own goal at Burnley.

Traore was used less in the following season (24 appearances in all competitions) but he was an unused substitute for both the World Club Championship final in Japan and the FA Cup final in Cardiff.

During the summer of 2006, Traore was sold to Charlton Athletic. He was sent-off on his debut against West Ham on the opening day of the 2006-07 season. The player was then sold to Portsmouth but made only 10 league appearances between his debut in January, 2007 and the end of the season. After figuring in only three league matches the following season, Djimi moved to Rennes on loan. The French club seemed keen to make the deal permanent but were unable to reach an agreement with Portsmouth so Traore returned to England's south coast. Although it seemed likely that Traore would move on again in the summer he was awarded a shirt-number (32), but only made two appearances before being loaned out to Championship club Birmingham City in February 2009.

Although Birmingham were promoted back to the Premier League at the end of the 2008-09 season, Djimi only appeared on only three occasions for the first team at St. Andrews. In June 2009 Traore signed for Monaco, whose manager Guy Lacombe had been in charge at Rennes when Djimi had a loan spell there in 2008.

Other clubs:

Laval, Lens (on loan), Charlton, Portsmouth, Rennes, Birmingham (on loan)