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Pep Guardiola has made a major change in goal for Manchester City and former Blues keeper Nicky Weaver analysed the moves for the MEN.
"We have spoken about the situation regarding squad planning and the two goalkeepers we have will continue."
So said Pep Guardiola on the day the summer transfer window opened in the Premier League. Either Guardiola was pulling the wool over our eyes, or the goalkeeping situation at Manchester City has developed rapidly and unexpectedly over the previous three months.
Because while Stefan Ortega remains at the club for now, the reality is that all three goalkeeping positions have changed over the summer. First, Scott Carson left to be replaced by Marcus Bettinelli. Then, City were forced into action on James Trafford after Newcastle had a bit accepted by Burnley.
That looked to be that, until the interest in Ederson developed and Gianluigi Donnarumma unexpectedly appeared on the market. When Manchester United visit the Etihad next weekend, it won't be Ederson and Ortega in the squad, but Donnarumma and Trafford.
And not only is that a major shake-up of personnel, but it's also a significant change in style. Out goes Ederson after eight years in which he almost redefined the position in the Premier League, and in comes Donnarumma, who might just be the last of the traditional goalkeepers, for who saving the ball carries much more weight than passing it.
If you wanted a goalkeeper to save a shot for you, then you would turn to the Italian. But for City under Guardiola, it has never been that simple.
"He's almost changed the face of goalkeeping. He was one of the first goalkeepers who really put the ball at risk," Nicky Weaver tells the Manchester Evening News of Ederson.
"I think he's been a phenomenal keeper, the most successful in the club's history. What he's achieved and what he's won is unparalleled."
Weaver, as a former City goalkeeper, regular Etihad attendee and a goalkeeping coach, is well placed to analyse what has gone on this summer. "It's surprised me," he said of Guardiola's shift in approach.
But first, the 46-year-old reflects on Ederson's 372 City appearances and a legacy that goes way beyond just the silverware he won in a glittering career in Manchester.
"It's like goalkeeping on the edge with his starting position, the way he receives it," Weaver said. "One of the biggest things that I see in him, it's not the confidence he's got in himself, it's the confidence that everyone else has in him because they'll give him the ball almost on his goal line under pressure and it's just not an issue.
"He'll always find the right pass, and you can almost count on one hand how many times he has given the ball away in a dangerous position in eight years. His short game has been absolutely pinpoint and precise, and then we've seen on various occasions his long game as well.
"He can easily hit a 70-yard diagonal straight over the full back into the path of the winger or wide man or straight through for the likes of Haaland or Aguero. Those sorts of attributes with his feet, I don't think I've ever seen anyone quite as good as him."
When Weaver does media work at the Etihad, he used to go pitchside as the players were warming up, specifically to watch Ederson, and he was always blown away by what he could do with the ball at his feet.
"He does a little thing where he kicks the ball out of his hands, and Xabi Mancisidor or Richard Wright will be walking across the halfway line and he goes from sort of one touch line to the other and every five or six yards Ederson will ping a ball like a sidewinder and it just goes straight to the goalkeeper coach's gloves," he said.
"He doesn't have to break stride and I've never seen anyone ever be able to do that. The detail and precision of his passing separates him from every other goalkeeper in the Premier League."
Ederson's City legacy is secure after his heroics in the Champions League final against Inter Milan in 2023, but it was always a trade-off between the brilliance with his feet and the occasional goal going in that he might have been expected to stop.
Those moments have become a little more common in the last couple of years and Weaver believes the Brazilian has never quite been taken to the hearts of City fans in the way that Joe Hart was before him.
Weaver had a spell coaching goalkeepers at Sheffield Wednesday and his son is still in the Owls' academy, and what he sees young stoppers working on now chimes with the way Ederson redefined the role in the Premier League.
"When I broke into City's team, everyone said I had good feet," said Weaver. "I didn't. I could just kick with my left foot. Where people before me couldn't kick with the weaker foot.
"My son's in the Sheffield Wednesday academy as a goalkeeper, and they work on the feet every session. Ultimately, you're going to be judged by whether you let in goals, but it's so important now. If you want to play at a top, top level, you've got to be a certain level with your feet.
"Training-wise, you do a lot of stuff with your feet, whether it's small-sided games or patterns of play that will start with a goalkeeper using his feet. It's not just when you're a goalkeeping coach working with a goalkeeper throughout the week. A lot of times, the coaches and manager will set things up with the goalkeeper as well.
"It's just a massive part of the transformation of the goalkeeper position in the last 15 years. I never played with a manager who told me to play out from the back. It just wasn't really a thing. In my day, if you were to play out from the back it would be give it to someone who could then turn and go forward, where now it’s to give it to someone to get it back to give it so someone to get it back, then to find a gap and break a line."
The responsibility to do that in the City goal will now fall on the shoulders of Donnarumma. The 26-year-old was made available by Paris St-Germain because Luis Enrique felt he couldn't do it.
Weaver believes his £26million price tag was a major reason City made their move, but there is no escaping the fact that things are going to look very different now.
"I'm a huge fan of Donnarumma, but he's a different goalkeeper from Ederson," he said. "So it's going to be really difficult because you're going to get compared. Is he as good as his feet with Ederson? Probably not, but there's probably no one else in the world who is.
"But as an actual goalkeeper, he's a brilliant, brilliant goalkeeper, and we've seen it many times. He won everything pretty much with PSG last year, broke English hearts in the Euros when he saved the penalties at Wembley, and is a huge goalkeeper who fills the goal, so he's a different animal to Ederson.
"He covers the goal. His shoulders are huge. He's 6’ 7". He's just a big, big man. And forget with your feet and everything, pound for pound, he is probably the best goalkeeper in the world, and I don't think too many people would disagree with that.
"Obviously, there's the whole package to consider, but top goalkeepers don't come on the market for this sort of price very often."
The speed at which the dynamics have changed for City is evident in the move for Trafford. When they used their clause to match Newcastle's £27million bid for him in July, the idea was that he would return and challenge Ederson for a season, with Ederson then likely to leave when his contract expires next summer.
Instead, Trafford now faced the prospect of having to dislodge a goalkeeper only four years his senior, who is rated as one of the world's best in his position, even if there are question marks over his ability to adapt to Guardiola's style.
Weaver has followed Trafford's development closely and hopes the 22-year-old will be given his chance to impress and kick on now that he's back at the Etihad.
"I like Trafford. I saw him play on loan at Bolton quite a bit. I was goalkeeper coach at Sheffield Wednesday, really liked him when I saw him then, really agile, really confident, makes big saves at big times," he said.
"He had a great season with Burnley last year, and now in the international set-up as well. He's a goalkeeper with a huge future. I really like him. I just hope he's given enough opportunity to prove what he can do and he's not in two years' time regretting his move to City because he's only played League Cup and FA Cup games."
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