Every England tournament countdown needs an injury scare story. The thing about the one which Kieran Trippier sparked on the Wednesday before last – from the other side of the world in Australia – was that he was oblivious to it.
Trippier had come off after 37 minutes of Newcastle’s post-season friendly against Tottenham in Melbourne, a fixture widely derided for the strain it placed on the players after a gruelling campaign and with Euro 2024 looming.
It was a planned substitution as Trippier felt his way back to fitness after only just returning from 10 weeks out with a calf problem, although he joked that his former Spurs teammate Son Heung-min had given him such a test the Newcastle manager, Eddie Howe, had no choice but to remove him. “It felt like I had played 120 minutes,” Trippier says. Jet-lag can do this.
So Trippier took his seat on the bench, put some ice on and stuck his leg up. That was when the madness really started. “I got so many messages after the game,” he says. “There was no knock. It was precautionary. Because of the flying [to Australia], we didn’t train and then to play a high-intensity game against Tottenham …
“I’m not trying to put a bag of ice on, put my leg up and think: ‘Right, I want to be in the media.’ But the next minute everyone is messaging me saying I’m out of the tournament and this, that and the other. I’m like: ‘Am I?!’”
What Trippier wants to make clear is that he is fine or, more likely, as fine as any player can be after a long layoff and only one week of competitive action at the end of the Premier League season in his legs; he played for a total of 73 minutes across Newcastle’s final three games.
Which is just as well because England need him. Badly. When Gareth Southgate named his provisional 33-man squad for the Euros, he included only one specialist left-back in Luke Shaw, who has not played since mid-February because of a muscle injury. Shaw is unlikely to be ready for the beginning of the finals – England kick off against Serbia on the Sunday after next – meaning that Trippier is in line to start at left-back; on his less favoured side.
All eyes will be on Trippier on Monday night when he leads out England as captain in the warm-up game against Bosnia and Herzegovina at St James’ Park – his club stadium – with his son, Jacob, alongside him as the mascot. It will be an extremely special moment and very much of a piece with the recent extremes he has lived, with the timeline of his long-haul trip to Melbourne worth going over.
Trippier and his Newcastle teammates flew from London on Sunday 19 May after the game at Brentford, arriving in Melbourne on the Tuesday morning. It was a recovery day, then play against Spurs, another recovery day, another game against the A-League All-Stars – when Howe played his youngsters, resting Trippier and the other first-teamers – and then back to the UK.
They would arrive just after Manchester United had beaten Manchester City in the FA Cup final, a result that served to bump Newcastle out of next season’s Uefa Conference League. Having played in the Champions League over this past season, they will have no European football next time out.
Trippier talked about how he had tried to stay on English time in Australia but it was “difficult”. Cue the rueful smile. “It was a good trip,” he insisted, even if it was hardly ideal. Trippier can cope. It is what he does, resilience one of his key attributes. It is why Southgate has previously described him as a “warrior”, why he knows he can count on him – even out of position at left-back where Trippier has played more for England in recent times than Newcastle.
“I would not say it is any different to playing right-back,” Trippier says. “I am not left-footed but wherever I play or don’t play, I will be ready. I am representing my country so that is the greatest thing and the honour.”
At 33, Trippier is one of the squad’s elder statesmen, a leader; like the other defenders who Southgate continues to rely on – Kyle Walker, John Stones and Harry Maguire. When the manager named his first tournament lineup – against Tunisia at the 2018 World Cup – he had all four in it, albeit in a back five rather than the four he has come to favour. Trippier started at right wing-back; it was Ashley Young on the left.
Trippier has no problem in saying that England can emerge victorious at the Euros and it was interesting to hear him talk about the visitor that the squad had to their training base in Middlesbrough on Saturday – England’s 2019 World Cup-winning cricket captain, Ben Stokes. That team famously put the emphasis on taking positive decisions in attack and defence. Their mentality can be an example.
“Ben spoke to us and we all took so much from it,” Trippier says. “It is the same as we want to do. We want to attack every tournament and attack every game similar to the cricket. He has some incredible stories about the setbacks he has had and we can relate that to ourselves.”
