James Trafford has opened up on the reasons he felt compelled to leave Manchester City, saying the lack of regular football took a serious toll on him. Now at Leeds United, the 24-year-old has described last season as a difficult period after making only four Premier League appearances.<\/p>\n
Speaking to BBC Sport, Trafford was candid about the emotional strain of being confined to the bench. He said it was \u201chorrendous\u201d to be forced to watch from the sidelines, and explained how he leaned on family and friends just to cope with the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are ringing a lot of people and just venting,\u201d he explained. \u201cLike 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.<\/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.<\/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<\/p>\n
Trafford\u2019s departure has also revived discussion around Gianluigi Donnarumma, whose form and suitability have been questioned amid several high-profile mistakes. The concerns have centred on whether he is the right fit for Enzo Maresca\u2019s tactical approach, particularly given that footwork has long been viewed as one of his weaker areas.<\/p>\n
Trafford, by contrast, is seen as a goalkeeper comfortable on the ball and better suited to a possession-based system. Maresca recently offered a measured assessment of Donnarumma, saying, \u201cHe\u2019s quite relaxed in terms of he recognizes that he has made some mistakes, but at the same time he has also made some good saves,\u201d he said recently. \u201cIt\u2019s just a matter of balance. Try to avoid mistakes and continue to do the right things.\u201d<\/p>\n
There had also been suggestions that City looked more secure defensively in cup matches when Trafford played, but the continued backing of Donnarumma left him with no route to stay in the summer. The club instead chose to keep faith with the Italian as they attempted to build towards a Premier League title push.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Trafford says leaving Manchester City was vital for his wellbeing, while Donnarumma’s fit is questioned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[702,238,172],"tags":[180,182],"class_list":["post-22277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leeds-united","category-manchester-city","category-epl","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}