Why Leeds United squad were 'blown away' by James Trafford in first training session

Leeds United goalkeeper James Trafford needed just one training session to leave his new teammates ‘blown away’.

Trafford made his unofficial Leeds debut during the first-half of Wednesday’s pre-season defeat to Manchester United. The score was level at 1-1 when he was replaced by Alex Cairns and remained so, with Brenden Aaronson cancelling out Joshua Zirkzee’s opener.

Leeds spent much of the opening 45 minutes defending and had to call on their club-record signing more than once. Trafford’s best moment came with a sharp save down to his left to tip Bryan Mbeumo’s effort round the post.

Missed penalties from Harry Wilson and James Justin saw Leeds defeated but on an individual level, Trafford’s performance was promising. And according to Aaronson, his quality was instantly shown upon joining the squad for training.

“I think we’ve added quality in spots that we needed and I think we're going to continue getting better and better,” Aaronson told ITV. “I think the signings that have come in have been fantastic so we need to keep doing this.

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“From what I’ve seen he [Trafford] is top. During the training session yesterday, I was blown away by how much quality he had. He’s a top goalkeeper and we’re lucky to have him. Especially today, the saves he made were really, really good.”

Despite the penalty-shootout defeat, Leeds can take a lot from their performance at Croke Park. Particularly after a half-time in which Farke made 10 changes, they looked sharp in the final third.

Noah Okafor returned from an extended break to cause problems while Willy Gnonto was another impressive performer at right wing-back. Goalscorer Aaronson insists there are plenty of positives to take back to West Yorkshire.

“Yeah for sure [there was a lot to be positive about],” he added. “The stadium was mostly Manchester United fans today but the Leeds fans were amazing.

“We had a great game, it could have gone either way. In the end it was a loss on penalties, but a tie if we were in the league, I think we played a great game.

“The expectation is always to do better. All we want to do is improve as footballers. As a club we want to keep making the fans proud and we’re going to continue to do that.”