Burnley have slapped a £30m asking price on James Trafford as Premier League rivals Chelsea and Newcastle United chase the goalkeeper.
Despite enduring a difficult debut season in the Premier League at relegated Burnley, Trafford is viewed as one of the most highly-rated and promising shot-stoppers in the country.
Trafford started 28 of Burnley’s 38 league games last season but found himself on the sidelines for the other ten as Vincent Kompany, who recently moved to Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich, dropped him in favour of Arijanet Muric.
Given Trafford’s unconvincing campaign, it was somewhat of a surprise to see him named in England’s provisional 33-man squad for Euro 2024 alongside fellow goalkeepers Jordan Pickford, Aaron Ramsdale and Dean Henderson.
Trafford, who was an expected drop-out from the final 26-man squad, has represented England at various youth levels and helped the U21 side win the European Championships last year.
The 21-year-old’s performances for club and country have not gone unnoticed, with Chelsea and Newcastle readying moves for the goalkeeper ahead of the summer transfer window, which opens on Friday.
Chelsea are expected to sign a new goalkeeper this summer and new manager Enzo Maresca is a fan of Trafford, who he worked with at Manchester City.
Newcastle are also looking to bring a new shot-stopper to St James’ Park and have turned their attentions to Trafford due to Arsenal’s steep valuation of Ramsdale.
Burnley know teams will try to pick off their top players following their relegation to the Championship but want at least £30m to part ways with Trafford, according to The Sun.
That means Newcastle will need to almost double their opening offer for the England U21 star, having seen a bid worth £16m rejected by Burnley over the weekend.
While Trafford was included in England’s provisional Euros squad, he was always going to be left at home, with Pickford the undisputed No. 1 and Ramsdale set to deputise in Germany.
England travel to their Euros base camp in Blankenhain on Monday after suffering a shock 1-0 defeat to Iceland in their final warm-up game.
The Three Lions – who face Serbia, Denmark and Slovenia in the group stage – began the week by beating Bosnia and Herzegovina 3-0 at St James’ Park.
‘Across the two games we haven’t had probably our full side out at any one point,’ Southgate said. ‘It has been strange preparation.
‘We are having to get players off after an hour when you would really be pushing to try and turn the result around.
‘It is not perfect but I have been involved in these last matches going into a tournament as a player and inevitably players have one eye on what is coming in terms of some of the early challenges.
‘No excuses on the result, we have to be better than that but there are a lot of things we can put right pretty quickly. We didn’t get our pressing right and we were too stretched without the ball.
‘There were questions asked that we weren’t able to answer. No matter how much talent you have with the ball, if your out of possession game isn’t right then it can make it feel like you’ve not got a foothold in the game.
‘We will be ready. Obviously tonight hasn’t gone as we hoped but I said to the players at the beginning of this 45-odd days we will spend together, not every day is going to go as we want it. Tonight is one of those but we need to stay very calm.’
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