{"id":656064,"date":"2025-06-23T10:23:30","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T14:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=656064"},"modified":"2025-06-23T10:25:52","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T14:25:52","slug":"newcastle-closing-in-james-trafford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/06\/23\/newcastle-closing-in-james-trafford\/","title":{"rendered":"Newcastle Closing in on &#8216;World-Class Player&#8217; \u2013 Deal &#8216;Expected to Accelerate&#8217; Next Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Newcastle are preparing to welcome Champions League football back to St James&#8217; Park next season with Eddie Howe&#8217;s men looking to strengthen their squad. According to <\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1937092784009142714\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Fabrizio Romano<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, Newcastle have begun negotiations to sign England U-21 international goalkeeper James Trafford. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Newcastle United Target James Trafford as Deal Expected to Accelerate<\/h2>\n<h3>Newcastle Looking to Strengthen Ahead of Champions League Return<\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The X update from Romano said: &#8220;Negotiations between Newcastle and Burnley for James Trafford are underway. <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Club to club<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> talks continue as the deal can happen from July, so expected to accelerate from next week.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/06\/19\/crystal-palace-ousmane-diomande-marc-guehi\/\" target=\"_self\">Crystal Palace Begin Talks for \u2018Monster\u2019 Newcastle United Target as \u2018Summer Priority\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">It appears Trafford could be a Newcastle player from next week. Howe <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">appears<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> to have made Trafford a key target as he looks to improve his goalkeeping department. Reports value Trafford from \u00a3<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/newcastle-target-trafford-face-30m-175000551.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">30<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">-40 million, meaning his value has substantially increased since he joined Burnley.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>The Progression of James Trafford<\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Trafford was instrumental to a Burnley team that conceded 16 goals in 46 championship games. He also set a league record, keeping 12 consecutive clean sheets. He was described by his manager Scott Parker as &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/articles\/cwyq7krw2r4o#:~:text=Burnley%20boss%20Scott%20Parker%20hailed,League%20relegation%20under%20Vincent%20Kompany.\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">world-class<\/a>&#8221; last season.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">He began his career in the Manchester City academy, before moving to Burnley and progressing rapidly. The 22-year-old has been called up to the senior England squad but is yet to make his debut. At <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">U-21<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> level, he was part of the squad that won the European Championship under Lee Carsley in 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/06\/13\/newcastle-united-joao-pedro\/\" target=\"_self\">Newcastle to \u2018Step Up\u2019 Pursuit for \u2018Magic\u2019 Forward After Learning that Player is Keen for St James\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">It&#8217;s difficult to see anything other than Trafford being the long-term number one for the Geordies, should they sign him. <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">There will undoubtedly be more players joining, with Howe&#8217;s team reportedly <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">looking at<\/span> <a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/06\/08\/newcastle-make-initial-contact-anthony-elanga\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Anthony Elanga<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> and <\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/06\/16\/newcastle-encouraged-joao-pedro\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Joao Pedro <\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">among other targets.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Newcastle are preparing to welcome Champions League football back to St James&#8217; Park next season with Eddie Howe&#8217;s men looking to strengthen their squad. According to Fabrizio Romano, Newcastle have begun negotiations to sign England U-21 international goalkeeper James Trafford. Newcastle United Target James Trafford as Deal Expected to Accelerate Newcastle Looking to Strengthen Ahead [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4106,"featured_media":631477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33,10,1267,30,7188],"tags":[32409,9707],"class_list":["post-656064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-championship","category-burnley","category-newcastle-united","category-news","category-rumours","tag-james-trafford","tag-newcastle-transfer-rumours"],"modified_by":"Ricky Carroll, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656064"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":656071,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656064\/revisions\/656071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}