James Trafford has admitted that he joined Leeds in the summer for his own “mental wellbeing” after a lack of game time at Manchester City left him feeling “horrendous” last season.
Academy graduate Trafford rejoined City in the summer of 2025 following a two-year spell at Burnley, but saw his ambitions of becoming the club’s number one dashed when Gianluigi Donnarumma came through the door from Paris Saint-Germain in the same transfer window.
Having started the opening three games of the Premier League season prior to Donnarumma’s deadline-day arrival, Trafford was subsequently relegated to second choice, with Pep Guardiola mostly deploying him in cup competitions.
He made just one more league appearance in the 35 matches that followed, which came on the final day of the season in City’s 2-1 defeat at home to Aston Villa, when Arsenal had already sealed the title.
"What a horrendous, horrendous feeling, not playing," Trafford told BBC Sport.
"You are ringing a lot of people and just venting. Like most people, you have a [bad] day at work and you ring someone up. I 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's quite funny.
"I had to play regularly this season for my own mental wellbeing. You just lose yourself not playing. Maybe I'm different, I don't know, but the feeling of not playing every week, it felt horrendous.
"I 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."
Trafford nevertheless played a significant part in City’s silverware successes last season, starting between the sticks for both the Carabao Cup final triumph against Arsenal and FA Cup final win over Chelsea at Wembley.
His performances did enough to earn a place in Thomas Tuchel’s England squad for the World Cup that summer, serving as back-up to Jordan Pickford, with Trafford completing his £45m switch to Leeds after the tournament.
Despite his struggles during his City return, Trafford does take value from that year of his career.
"Going into any season, I always have the highest of hopes and always the belief that it will go the best way it could," he added. "Unfortunately, we didn't win all four trophies. It didn't go how I expected it to go, but it happens.
"In the moment, I just tried to make the best of it as I could. Looking back, I don't think it was a disappointing season in the end because I learned so much, I improved so much and I won two trophies in one year.
"There were moments when I was very down, regretting things and feeling disappointed, but looking back, I'm very thankful for the experience. What an incredible year."
