Burnley are preparing to face the likes of Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool in the Premier League this season.
The former Manchester City goalkeeper moved to Turf Moor in the aftermath of the Championship title win in 2023 but endured a challenging first season in the top flight under Kompany. After being handed his first chance to shine in the top flight by the Belgian, Trafford and his side both struggled to adapt as the Clarets made an immediate return to the Championship after winning just five of their 38 league games.
Current boss Parker will be hoping for better as his own version of the Clarets return to English football’s elite after securing runners-up spot in the Championship last season. Much has been made of the defensive solidity and discipline in Parker’s side and comparisons have been made with the more attack-minded, possession-based style encouraged by Kompany.
Trafford gave his own take on such comparisons and stressed the current man in charge will ‘have his own beliefs on how to bring success’ during the upcoming campaign.
He told Ben Foster’s Fozcast: “They’re both very good managers in their own right. They’re both different managers in how they play and how they do things. Vinny was brilliant. He was brilliant for me and he was brilliant for a lot of the lads. He was obviously a brilliant manager.
“The whole concept that we didn’t change all season, we changed quite a lot. If you watched Burnley throughout the season, although the promoted teams don’t get as much TV, but we set up at the start of the season trying to be free-flowing. We obviously had a tough start and then as the months went on we went a lot more direct, I was taking free-kicks from the halfway line into the box. We changed it a lot throughout the season.
“We tried a lot of things and we obviously didn’t stay up, but Scott Parker will have his own ways of how to do it. He’s managed in the league before and he will have his own beliefs of how to bring success.”
No other team
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Burnley’s return to the top flight means Trafford will come face-to-face with the club where he spent the early years of his career.
You could forgive the England international for looking for the name Manchester City when the Clarets fixtures for the new season were released last month - and he won’t have too long to wait to met his old club as Trafford and his team-mates head to the Etihad Stadium in late September before hosting Pep Guardiola’s side at Turf Moor in April.
The closest Trafford came to seeing senior competitive action with City were six appearances as an unused substitute as his introduction to life at first team level came during impressive loan spells with Accrington Stanley and Bolton Wanderers before he moved on to Burnley in a permanent deal in 2023. However, the lessons he was taught within City’s academy remain prominent in his mind as he prepares to return to the Premier League.
He said: “(Being at City’s academy) It helps because of the way the game’s gone. It’s gone more with the ball, so being at City obviously did help a lot. We played with the ball when I joined, which was at 13. No other team really understood what to do but we understood all the patterns which helped massively. But goalkeeping is the same, you’ve just got to adapt wherever you go.”
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