James Trafford spent most of last season watching football rather than playing it, and he has used a BBC Sport interview to say how badly it hurt.

The 24-year-old told BBC Sport’s Football Daily programme that watching every weekend from the Manchester City bench left him on the phone to family and friends almost every evening just to vent.

“What a horrendous, horrendous feeling. Not playing.”

Trafford started City’s first three matches of the 2025-26 campaign before Gianluigi Donnarumma arrived from Paris Saint-Germain and took the shirt. He made only one further Premier League start in the 35 league games that followed, according to BBC Sport.

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Finals at Wembley, nothing in the league

He was not completely frozen out. Trafford kept the gloves in the domestic cups and started both the FA Cup and League Cup finals at Wembley, picking up winners’ medals in both competitions as Pep Guardiola’s side swept the knock-out silverware.

In the league, though, he barely featured. The England goalkeeper had rejoined Manchester City from Burnley the previous summer, two years after leaving the Etihad, following a Championship season in which he helped Vincent Kompany’s side win promotion.

A permanent exit to Elland Road

The frustration eventually drove the move. On 6 August 2026 Manchester City confirmed the permanent sale to Leeds United, with the Yorkshire club tying him to a five-year contract. BBC Sport has reported the package at up to £45m, a record for a British goalkeeper.

Trafford told the BBC the decision was first and foremost about his own head.

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“I had to play regularly this season for my own mental wellbeing. You just lose yourself not playing.”

Nine starts, three clean sheets

At Elland Road he has what he moved for. Trafford has started all nine of Leeds’ Premier League matches in the 2026-27 season and kept three clean sheets.

He told the BBC he still looks back on the Manchester City year with gratitude for what he learned from training alongside Donnarumma and the rest of Guardiola’s squad, even as he admitted there were moments during the season when he felt very down and disappointed.

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