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Cole Palmer knew. Two years before he glared at Donald Trump during Chelsea’s Club World Cup trophy lift, the forward went viral for another reaction towards the end of a major final. That was in the last minute of the Under-21 European Championship clash between England and Spain, when Palmer was on the substitutes bench alongside Emile Smith-Rowe while watching James Trafford face down Abel Ruiz from the penalty spot.
Palmer’s deflected free-kick had put England on the verge of victory, but a VAR-awarded spot-kick was awarded deep in stoppage time, offering Spain the perfect chance to level and force extra-time. But Palmer, who had grown up with Trafford in Manchester City’s academy, had a feeling.
"Bet you he saves this. Watch. My guy man," he said. And once Trafford turned away Ruiz’s penalty and then kept out Aimar Oroz’s rebounded effort with his feet, Smith-Rowe went straight up to Palmer and reminded him: "Cole! You said". Palmer responded: "Do you know how good this guy is? Do you know how good he is?"
At the time, however, City did not know how good Trafford was, as they had just sanctioned his transfer to Burnley. Or, more accurately, they did not yet believe he was the finished article. But they must have had a similar inkling to Palmer, as they placed a clause in his Clarets contract that allowed them to match any future offers for the youngster.
Newcastle’s recent bid for Trafford forced City into a decision on whether to match that offer, and they decided to go for it, bringing the goalkeeper back to the club that he left in 2023 without making his first-team debut. Now comes the next big decision for Pep Guardiola: whether to start the season with Trafford or stick with Ederson for the 2025-26 campaign.
Cole Palmer knew. Two years before he glared at Donald Trump during Chelsea‘s Club World Cup trophy lift, the forward went viral for another reaction towards the end of a major final. That was in the last minute of the Under-21 European Championship clash between England and Spain, when Palmer was on the substitutes bench alongside Emile Smith-Rowe while watching James Trafford face down Abel Ruiz from the penalty spot.
Palmer’s deflected free-kick had put England on the verge of victory, but a VAR-awarded spot-kick was awarded deep in stoppage time, offering Spain the perfect chance to level and force extra-time. But Palmer, who had grown up with Trafford in Manchester City’s academy, had a feeling.
“Bet you he saves this. Watch. My guy man,” he said. And once Trafford turned away Ruiz’s penalty and then kept out Aimar Oroz’s rebounded effort with his feet, Smith-Rowe went straight up to Palmer and reminded him: “Cole! You said”. Palmer responded: “Do you know how good this guy is? Do you know how good he is?”
At the time, however, City did not know how good Trafford was, as they had just sanctioned his transfer to Burnley. Or, more accurately, they did not yet believe he was the finished article. But they must have had a similar inkling to Palmer, as they placed a clause in his Clarets contract that allowed them to match any future offers for the youngster.
Newcastle’s recent bid for Trafford forced City into a decision on whether to match that offer, and they decided to go for it, bringing the goalkeeper back to the club that he left in 2023 without making his first-team debut. Now comes the next big decision for Pep Guardiola: whether to start the season with Trafford or stick with Ederson for the 2025-26 campaign.
Trafford joined City’s academy in 2015 aged 12, and in 2021 began searching for senior football elsewhere, as he headed initially on loan to Accrington Stanley in League One before jumping ship to Bolton Wanderers in the same division the following January. He extended that loan spell with Bolton by another season before jumping two divisions up to sign for الدوري الإنجليزي الممتاز-bound Burnley, who had earned promotion under City’s legendary captain Vincent Kompany.
Trafford made his Premier League bow for the Clarets in a 3-0 defeat to City which proved to be the start of a disappointing season for both Burnley and the goalkeeper, who lost his place in the team to Arijanet Muric towards the end of the campaign. The final straw for Kompany was a botched pass at Crystal Palace which led to team-mate Josh Brownhill getting sent off, but after Burnley were relegated, Muric joined newly-promoted Ipswich Town while Trafford stayed with the Clarets in the Championship.
It was in the second tier of English football where Trafford revived his reputation among Burnley fans and reached legendary status. In January, he saved two penalties against Sunderland in one game, and the following month surpassed the 1000-minute mark without having conceded a goal. In March, he broke a Championship record when he kept a 12th-successive clean sheet, and Burnley ended the campaign having conceded just 16 goals, smashing the previous record of 20, as Trafford played every game bar one.
While Trafford was performing those heroics, his former club had no end of goalkeeping troubles. City conceded 44 goals in the Premier League, their most for 15 years, with Ederson often blamed for the leakage. The Brazil international was dropped for a three-week period after a terrible display against Feyenoord in November having been partly culpable for all of the goals conceded in the shock 3-3 draw, and when he returned to the team to face Juventus, he produced another horrible display.
In Ederson’s favour was the fact that his back-up, Stefan Ortega, also struggled. The German conceded 17 goals in a 10-game spell in the league during which City won just three times, and he was pilloried by Guardiola for conceding two late goals at Brentford, which preceded Ortega conceding five times in the thrashing by Arsenal. He ended a bad season on an even lower note, too, by losing the FA Cup final to Crystal Palace, even if he could not be blamed for the only goal of the game.
Ortega is expected to leave City after Trafford’s arrival, meaning Ederson will be the Englishman’s main competition for the No.1 spot next season. There has, however, been no shortage of speculation regarding the Brazilian’s future ever since it became clear that Ederson wanted to leave City in the summer of 2024 when a lucrative offer came in from Saudi Arabia. Guardiola persuaded him to stay, but there have been further reports of interest from Napoli and Galatasaray this summer. بالجم understands, however, that no concrete offer ever arrived, and the man himself said during the Club World Cup that reports of him moving on were “fake news”.
Speculation over Ederson’s future is likely to continue, as he heads into the final year of his contract with City. He is set to turn 32 the day after the team’s opening match of the season at Wolves, and unlike with the experienced Ortega, Ederson is now competing with a player nine years his junior who should be approaching his prime years.
In many ways the situation is ideal for all parties. Ederson can begin the season as No.1 with Trafford breathing down his neck and keeping him on his toes, ready to take his place if he slips up too often. And if both club and player cannot agree a contract extension, then Ederson will be free to choose his next destination by the end of the season, by which time Trafford will be in a better place to take the baton from him as the first choice ‘keeper.
Trafford, however, has not come back to City to warm the bench, even for a year. He is renowned for being supremely confident and believes he is good enough to be No.1 right now. He has never been shy of talking up his ability, either, having told an ITV interviewer “I know I’m world-class” after Burnley’s win over Watford last season.
He has certainly looked it over the past 12 months, and even though he was playing one division down, he performed at a far higher level than Ederson.
Trafford did not just concede so few goals because Burnley’s defence was rock solid, even though it helped. He faced 103 on target shots last term and saved 85 of them (85 percent); Ederson, by comparison, faced 78 attempts while just saving 53 (69.2%).
Trafford also outperformed Ederson in more detailed metrics such as post-shot expected goals – an Opta statistic that measures how likely the goalkeeper is to save the shot – minus the number of goals conceded. It effectively amounts to the number of goals a ‘keeper prevents; the figure for Trafford was 11.8, while Ederson’s was five. The data, whilst allowing for the differences in quality between the Premier League and Championship, suggests that Trafford was a better shot-stopper last season than Ederson.
When it comes to successfully stopping crosses, Ederson and Trafford performed roughly the same. Ederson, however, still performed comfortably better than Trafford in the areas you would expect him to still dominate. He made 1.90 defensive actions outside of his area per 90 minutes, with an average distance of 17.5 yards; Trafford made 1.11 per 90 minutes, with an average distance of 14.2 yards.
Ederson also has the upper hand when it comes to distribution. While the Brazilian is adept at passing out from the back and retaining possession, his greatest asset is his ability to create attacks quickly by launching the ball forward.
Take what Peter Schmeichel told بالجم last year: “The way Man City play, if they’re lucky enough to have teams being brave and pushing up against them, then he’s lethal. He’s got the pass that can cut through a team. I’m not necessarily talking about the 50-yard pass, just a 12-yard pass straight up the middle. Just with one pass he’s by-passing four or five players. I’ve never seen anybody do that.”
Ederson set up four goals in the league last season, taking his total tally to a Premier League record of seven assists. He averaged a pass completion rate of 46% from his launched passes (40 yards or more). That was, in fact, his lowest rate since 2021, but it was still far better than Trafford’s 25.8%.
Conversely, Trafford was much more likely to launch the ball than Ederson. He played 27.1% of his total number of passes long last season, while Ederson launched just 17.5%. Trafford also punted the ball further forward, as he cleared 68.7% of goal kicks, while Ederson only opted to do 23.4% of the time.
The Brazilian had a completion rate of 100% of short passes and 98.3% of medium-length passes, while for long passes, of 30 yards or more, it was 65.3%. Trafford performed almost identically in two of those areas, with a 99.6% completion rate of short passes and 98.7% of medium-length passes, but for long passes the drop off was stark, down to 41.2%. In his first season in the Premier League, it was even lower, at 32%.
Trafford will need a bit of time to re-learn City’s style of play. While Kompany favoured a possession game that had many parallels with Guardiola’s style, the Belgian’s successor, Scott Parker, placed less of an emphasis on keeping the ball. However, given that he spent his formative years in City’s academy, which teaches the same style from the first team all the way down, Trafford shouldn’t take long to pick it up again.
He will likely never get close to Ederson’s standards with the ball at his feet, but there is a sense that the Brazilian is a one of a kind and hoping to find a like-for-like replacement is unrealistic. Rather, there is an increasing sense of frustration among City fans over the frequency of Ederson’s errors and his sloppy goalkeeping. Both were on show at the Club World Cup, as his terrible distribution led to a goal against Juventus, and he also looked rusty in the shock 4-3 knockout defeat to Al-Hilal.
Last season, there was a sinking feeling that Ederson’s struggles to keep the ball out of the net were causing more problems than his distribution abilities were solving. Trafford, meanwhile, returns to the club where he grew up as a rising star who was known above all for stopping shots and digging his team out of a hole, particularly from the penalty spot. It was that ability to deliver when it matters most that Palmer had in mind when he made his bold prediction in Georgia two years ago. Now Trafford has the chance to show that his old team-mate was right and to prove, at the very highest level, just how good he is.
