This week Kieran Trippier was ranked the 40th best footballer on the planet in 2023 by FourFourTwo, and I stand by the ranking.
Mistakes happen, but putting Trippier in our top 50 is not one. Unfortunately, a series of mistakes have made December 2023 a month to forget for the full-back.
On December 7th at Goodison Park a close game was tipped in favour of Everton by Trippier’s loose pass that ended in a Dwight McNeil goal. It had been 0-0 up until this point and Newcastle conceded twice more before full-time (Trippier played Beto onside for Everton’s third).
It was a bruising defeat. As uncharacteristic for Trippier as it was for Newcastle to be on the wrong end of a three-goal loss.
Key errors by a consistent 8/10 player stick out like a sore thumb. Inevitable conspiracy theories are linking the rise in Trippier's mistakes with his early withdrawal from the England squad on 19 November for ‘personal reasons’.
But in the three games immediately after his early England exit Trippier played full 90s as Eddie Howe’s team hammered Chelsea 4-1 at home in the league, almost won away at PSG in a vital Champions League fixture for both clubs and brushed aside Manchester United 1-0 at home.
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Up until this point Tripper had been performing as you’d expect Kieran Trippier to perform. He is still the Premier League’s top assist-maker this season with seven, an exceptional deadball deliverer, an on pitch-problem solver, relentless presser, brilliant defender, leader and other positive nouns ending in er.
After his Everton errors, he faced the press. “I don’t hide. I hold my hands up and take responsibility,” Trippier said. “Now it’s just about getting back on the bike again against Spurs.”
But at Tottenham the chain came off. Trippier on toast was the order of the day for his old pal Son Heung-min who twice got the better of his ex-team-mate to set up goals in a 4-1 defeat.
Trippier was also yellow-carded which triggered a suspension. Out of the firing line and perhaps benefiting from a much-needed rest, Trippier watched a patched up Newcastle dispatch Fulham 3-0 the following weekend.
On 19 December he started on the bench against Chelsea in the League Cup. Maybe rested, maybe dropped, maybe the former is most likely. He has played around 300 more minutes this season compared to the same stage last season. At 33 years of age, it could be a tipping point, if not at least a factor.
Joining the Chelsea cup game at half-time, after Emil Krafth was the victim of a nasty challenge by Levi Colwill, Newcastle were on the back foot away from home and protecting a slender lead.
In injury time a hopeful deep ball was pumped deep into the right-back area by Chelsea. Tripper, unsure whether to stick or twist with his headed clearance, did neither. Inadvertently cushioning a header into the path of Mykhailo Mudryk who equalised in the 92nd minute and handed impetus to Chelsea for the ensuing penalty shootout which they won.
There was a sinking feeling among Newcastle fans when their vice-captain stepped forward to take their second penalty of the shootout. The best striker of the ball at the club and he skewed his kick wide.
Cue inevitable internet backlash. But it’s a total waste of bandwidth, for a couple of reasons. If anyone in the Newcastle squad deserves a pass, it’s Trippier. “A transformative signing for us”, Eddie Howe said as he digested this most painful exit from a winnable cup competition. “He glued the dressing room together. He's been the heartbeat of our performances."
He took a pay cut to leave Atletico Madrid in January 2021 and join a team in the Premier League relegation zone, turning down a three-year contract extension at the La Liga club.
His return to England was triggered by family issues. “I was going through a difficult moment with other stuff that was going on in my personal life” he told The High Performance podcast in May.
Tripper doesn't strike me as a man who allows outside voices to affect him, but if those voices are Newcastle fans then shame on them. At £12 million plus add-ons, he is probably pound-for-pound one of the best signings in the club’s history: 77 games (mostly wearing the captain’s armband), 17 assists, 20 clean sheets with Newcastle picking up an average of 1.77 points per game when he plays which translates as 67.26 points over the course of a season (marginally short of the typical average required for Champions League qualification since 2001/02).
Trippier has been around the block too many times to be moved by criticism, no one will be hurting more than him about these errors. But he has the full support of the dressing room and a manager who said: "Tripps is an incredibly strong character. He's given us so much, now is our turn to support him and look after him the other. That's what we'll do.”
Even if it's a small minority calling out Trippier, that's still too big.
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