{"id":31929,"date":"2025-07-29T21:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T21:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/31929\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T21:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T21:07:10","slug":"james-trafford-completes-man-city-return-the-incredible-records-he-broke-in-the-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/31929\/","title":{"rendered":"James Trafford completes Man City return – The incredible records he broke in the Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

6th most expensive PL keeper\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"James<\/p>\n

\n \u00a9IMAGO\n <\/p>\n

Just two years after departing the Etihad in pursuit of regular first-team football, James Trafford<\/a>\u00a0has completed a return to Manchester City<\/a> this summer. The England U21 shot-stopper, who left for Burnley<\/a> in the summer of 2023, is now set to rejoin the Sky Blues as part of Pep Guardiola\u2019s<\/a> plans to refresh his goalkeeping ranks.\u00a0With Ederson\u2019s<\/a> future still uncertain and Stefan Ortega<\/a> linked with a move away, Trafford\u2019s return could signal a reshuffling of the guard between the posts. Trafford\u2019s composure, distribution, and shot-stopping have long been admired in City\u2019s corridors. The young goalkeeper has a current market value of \u20ac22 million.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Man City have a \u20ac40m buy-back clause for Trafford, but\u00a0have agreed a deal with Burnley for below that figure for a fee of \u20ac31.2m, making him the sixth most expensive keeper in Premier League history. During his inaugural season at Turf Moor, when Burnley were in the Premier League<\/a>, Trafford struggled at times, making some high-profile mistakes as Vincent Kompany’s<\/a> team were vilified for trying to play out from the back, and the Clarets were subsequently relegated. However, last term in the Championship<\/a>, Trafford really began to show his worth, as he toppled the division’s record for clean sheets. Transfermarkt takes a closer look at the deal, the player\u2019s development since leaving City, and what his homecoming could mean for the champions\u2019 goalkeeping future.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\nJames Trafford’s Championship clean sheet record<\/p>\n

In last season’s promotion from the Championship, Burnley’s success was fortified around having a solid defence. In fact, the club not only broke, but obliterated the record for the least goals conceded in a single Championship campaign. As illustrated in the graphic above, Trafford picked the ball out of his net just 16 times in 46 matches – a truly astonishing record. Whilst the Championship can of course not replicate the levels of the Premier League, it is still a very competitive division and this achievement from Trafford and Burnley should not be scoffed at.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As highlighted above, Trafford himself also broke the record for the most clean sheets in a single Championship campaign. Amazingly, the 22-year-old managed to keep 29 clean sheets in the league alone last term, smashing the previous record of 24 shared by\u00a0Dorus de Vries at Swansea in the 2009\/10 season and John Ruddy at Wolves in the 2017\/18 campaign. Trafford has grown a lot since he left Man City, but a return to the Etihad to potentially fill the shoes of Ederson is going to be a tough ask. Nevertheless, there is little doubt Trafford is one of the best young keepers in the country, and this deal will also come as a huge blow to Newcastle, who had also wanted him this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"6th most expensive PL keeper\u00a0 \u00a9IMAGO Just two years after departing the Etihad in pursuit of regular first-team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[19403,10915,218,10154,399,19404,221,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-31929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-burnley","tag-championship","tag-football","tag-james-trafford","tag-manchester-city","tag-pep-guardiola","tag-premier-league","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}