Burnley’s James Trafford returns to the Premier League a more experienced and more mature goalkeeper than the last time he played at this level.
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Aged just 20, the stopper was thrown straight into the deep end under Vincent Kompany during Burnley’s last season in the top flight.
It proved to be a difficult campaign for the goalkeeper, who was part of a Burnley side that suffered relegation with just 24 points to their name.
Kompany largely ignored calls for Trafford to be taken out of the spotlight early into the season, but eventually dropped him towards the back end of the campaign.
Muric, now an Ipswich Town player, remained in between the sticks until the end of the season.
“It’s obviously not a very nice feeling,” Trafford told Ben Foster on the Fozcast podcast.
James Trafford warms up as a substitute prior to Burnley's game against Sheffield United in April 2024 (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)placeholder image
James Trafford warms up as a substitute prior to Burnley's game against Sheffield United in April 2024 (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)
"It was in the morning of a game. We got ourselves in shape all week and in the morning the manager pulls me to the side and tells me Aro gives us the best chance of winning the game.
“It’s the morning of the game, so it’s tough to process. But at the end of the day it’s the team that is the biggest thing.
“I want to play and I believe me playing helps, but we won that game so essentially it was the right decision. But it was definitely a tough thing to process at the time because I wasn’t playing bad. I’d played a lot worse throughout the season, I was actually playing quite good. The week before we got a point at West Ham and I was playing well.
“It was tough, but it was quite good that we went away with the international the week after just to get away from it and just have a different environment.
“It was tough in the moment. You want to support the team, but selfishly you want to play because everyone knows football is a selfish sport.”
Instead of sulking, Trafford knuckled down and used his time away from the starting XI to make improvements in his game.
“I have people who I’m close to who I speak to in moments like that,” the 22-year-old added. “I was really close to the goalkeeping coach Jelle [ten Rouwelaar] and the player care guy at the time and they were the two people within the club who I spoke to quite a lot.
“The goalie coach was brilliant for me. He told me with 10 games of the season left it’s unlikely you get back in, unless there’s an injury. He’s not going to change it again, it just doesn’t make any sense.
“But he also said whatever happens in the summer, don’t waste this time. Use this time as time to get better. I wasn’t playing on the weekend so do more gym, do more sessions and to be fair, every day for like 45 minutes or an hour after every session we’d do a bit together.
“It’s something I look back on, because he didn’t have to do that. But we were really close and he wanted the best for me.”
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