Ex-Man City goalkeeper James Trafford has opened up about his decision to leave Man City for Leeds United, admitting that a lack of regular playing time affected his mental wellbeing and forced him to seek a fresh challenge.\n<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old goalkeeper returned to City in July 2025, two years after leaving the club for Burnley, hoping to establish himself as Pep Guardiola\u2019s first-choice goalkeeper.\n<\/p>\n
However, his chances were affected by the arrival of Italy international Gianluigi Donnarumma from Paris Saint-Germain less than six weeks later.\n<\/p>\n
After starting City\u2019s first three Premier League matches of the campaign, Trafford managed just one further league start in the next 35 games, leaving him frustrated by his limited involvement.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Football Daily\u2019s The Football Interview on Saturday, Trafford described the experience of being on the sidelines as extremely difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a horrendous, horrendous feeling. Not playing,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are ringing a lot of people and just venting. Like most people, you have a [bad] day at work and you ring someone up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ring my dad, I ring my mum, I ring my missus, I ring my mates. I like ringing my mates and we can just have a good talk about it all. It\u2019s quite funny.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Trafford admitted that regular football had become essential for his personal happiness and professional development.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to play regularly this season for my own mental wellbeing. You just lose yourself not playing. Maybe I\u2019m different, I don\u2019t know, but the feeling of not playing every week, it felt horrendous.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI just had to play every week this season for that mental feel-good and to keep progressing with my career and edging me closer to achieving the dreams I want to achieve,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
Despite his struggles for playing time, Trafford insisted that his final season at Manchester City was not entirely disappointing.\n<\/p>\n
He helped the club win the League Cup and FA Cup, starting both finals at Wembley, and believes the experience contributed significantly to his development.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking back, I don\u2019t think it was a disappointing season in the end because I learned so much, I improved so much and I won two trophies in one year,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were moments when I was very down, regretting things and feeling disappointed, but looking back, I\u2019m very thankful for the experience. What an incredible year.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Having moved to Leeds in search of regular first-team football, Trafford is now focused on improving his performances and fulfilling another major ambition: becoming England\u2019s first-choice goalkeeper.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my aim and it\u2019s something I\u2019ve always dreamed of,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI always believe that one day I could be. Every day I try to keep improving to put myself in the best position to be England\u2019s number one one day.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
Source: <\/p>\n
Ex-Man City goalkeeper James Trafford has opened up about his decision to leave Man City for Leeds United, admitting that a lack of regular playing time affected his mental wellbeing… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}