Manchester City face immediate uncertainty in goal after two goalkeepers are reportedly considering moves in January. James Trafford, the club’s \u00a331 million summer signing, and Stefan Ortega both appear to be weighing exits after sudden changes to the pecking order.<\/p>\n
Trafford began 2025\u201326 as Pep Guardiola\u2019s starter, selected ahead of Ederson, but early shaky performances, including a chastening defeat to Tottenham Hotspur, unsettled supporters. A quirk of the transfer saw City receive \u00a34 million back from Trafford\u2019s deal because of a sell-on fee inserted when he left Burnley in 2023.<\/p>\n
Events moved quickly on Deadline Day when Manchester City took Gianluigi Donnarumma after Paris Saint-Germain decided to move on from the Italian. The 2025 Yashin Trophy winner was slightly cheaper than Trafford and has started every Premier League game since his arrival. Ederson left for Fenerbah\u00e7e as part of the process to create the space for Donnarumma.<\/p>\n
The change left Trafford in a difficult position. His only subsequent appearances have been in the Carabao Cup and a 2\u20130 defeat to Bayer Leverkusen. The Daily Mail reports Trafford is now looking at the January window, having been told when he arrived that he would be No. 1. It had been hoped the move might help his bid to challenge Pickford for England\u2019s starting berth going into the 2026 World Cup, but his relegation to a backup role could put that at risk.<\/p>\n
Newcastle United remain a possible destination after the Magpies were beaten to Trafford\u2019s signature in the summer transfer period. Eddie Howe\u2019s side instead brought in Aaron Ramsdale on loan from Southampton, but Nick Pope retained the No. 1 role.<\/p>\n
Stefan Ortega also reportedly intends to leave. The German made 56 appearances in the three seasons before 2025\u201326 and has been relegated to third choice, not even making the bench since the opening day of the Premier League campaign in August.<\/p>\n
Compounding City\u2019s goalkeeping concerns, Donnarumma has been booked four times in 10 Premier League appearances, three cautions for dissent and one for timewasting. He is one booking away from a one-game suspension under the current accumulation rules, with the split-season reset due after the 19th gameweek.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two Manchester City goalkeepers are weighing January exits as Donnarumma has seized No.1. in January<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4854,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,172,1163],"tags":[332,1066],"class_list":["post-4855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","category-epl","category-transfers","tag-aaron-ramsdale","tag-carabao-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4855","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=4855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}