James Trafford: Where will he fit in at Manchester City?

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Photo by Molly Darlington/Getty Images City agree deal to re-sign academy star Manchester City are set to bring goalkeeper James Trafford back to the Etihad Stadium from Burnley this summer in a £27 million deal.The CFA graduate joined the Clarets in 2023 for £15 million, but City’s desire for more homegrown players in the squad and to freshen up their goalkeeping unit has seen them agree a fee lower than his £40 million buy back clause - though he will still be the most expensive British goalkeeper of all time.The Blues fought off competition from Newcastle United, who’ve had a torrid window - losing out on numerous targets in Bryan Mbeumo, Matheus Cunha, Hugo Ekitike, Dean Huijsen and Joao Pedro (with Trafford being the latest to join that list) and having star man Alexander Isak hand in a transfer request. Photo by Ben Roberts - Danehouse/Getty Images This move means it’s a near certainty that we’ll see one of City’s two first choice keepers, Ederson and Stefan Ortega-Moreno, leave the club this summer.Initially, it appeared that Ederson was the man to leave, with Galatasaray interested, but the latest reports from David Ornstein suggest that the Brazilian is staying put for the final season of his contract, with Ortega leaving instead.If Ederson stays, you can expect him to remain as City’s number one keeper, despite Trafford’s potential and the amount of pressure online from plastic supporters to see Ederson leave.But, if there’s a last minute change and Galatasaray do complete a deal for the 31 year old, we could see Trafford promoted to be City’s number one sooner than first thought.Either way, I expect we’ll see him as the first choice goalkeeper from the 2026/27 season. Both Ederson and Ortega’s contracts run out next year, and it’s almost impossible that we’ll see even one of them both at the club beyond that point. Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images And as mentioned above, City are needing to fulfil homegrown quotas with Kyle Walker gone and Jack Grealish, Kalvin Phillips and James McAtee set to follow him out of the door.Trafford’s signing means he joins Phil Foden, Oscar Bobb, Nico O’Reilly, John Stones, Rico Lewis, Nathan Ake and fellow new goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli as City’s homegrown players, and as such it means fewer players will need to be removed from the squad in order to register everyone.From a footballing perspective, Trafford’s signing makes a lot of sense too.He’s similar to City great Joe Hart in that he’s tall, confident and a good shot stopper, whilst being better with his feet than the former City number one. Photo by Jean Catuffe/Getty Images He will probably never be as natural as Ederson with his distribution, and has some way to go to be as good as Hart too, in terms of shot stopping, aerial dominance and communication, but has all the talent to do so and is likely to become England’s number one in the next few years or so.He has picked up a reputation for keeping clean sheets at both Bolton Wanderers and Burnley, and whilst that’s at a lower level than the Premier League and Champions League with City, it’s clearly a part of his game that he takes immense pride in.I don’t think he’s ready to be the number one yet. However, with a year as Ederson’s understudy to further develop, I’m certain he’ll be good enough next year to naturally take over as the new first choice goalkeeper, and turn out to be another good signing in what has quietly been a good window of incomings for City up to this point. Photo by Alex Caparros - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images