Top flight now in reach for young Trafford

KEEPER IS ANOTHER SUCCESS STORY FOR CITY ACADEMY

- SIMON BAJKOWSKI

JAMES Trafford is a realist. He knew as he was coming through the City academy that if he was ever going to play for the first team he had to be as good as Ederson with his feet if not better.

It's why he put extra effort into training up that part of his game as well as lasering in on how to improve his hands.

That also means that little fazes the Cumbrian-born goalkeeper raised in the same part of the world that produced Scott Carson, Dean Henderson, and Curtis Anderson.

Training with Pep Guardiola and the stars of the first team was seen as natural progression - "You see them more as teammates rather than really big famous names, they're normal men at the end of the day," Trafford told M.E.N. Sport as he came through the ranks - in the same way that he grasped the opportunity to be England Under21 stopper in March.