The England right-back has spoken about his final season at Tottenham Hotspur and what the Atletico Madrid manager soon told him
Kieran Trippier says that Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone told him that he needed to improve his defending after his final season at Tottenham.
Trippier, currently playing for England at Euro 2024, left Tottenham for a new chapter in Madrid in the summer of 2019 after Mauricio Pochettino’s side had reached the Champions League final in the city, losing to Liverpool. In a new podcast interview with Gary Neville, the full-back spoke about his final difficult year at Spurs and his exit from the club.
“[I needed] a change. I had a talk with Pochettino and Daniel Levy at the time and I was not getting the answers I wanted, in the sense of whether I’m a part of the plans or not. But that’s fine, players and managers come and go, and it is about trying to find that next step,” said Trippier on The Overlap, in association with Sky Bet.
“Atlético Madrid came in and I just said to the manager straight away that I wanted to sign for them. I was then in Madrid straight away and I have never looked back since, it was an unbelievable journey.”
Trippier admitted that Simeone soon told him bluntly what he needed to fix about his game and it would certainly work as the right-back played his part in Atletico winning the La Liga title in his first season.
“When I went to Atlético Madrid people were saying it was the wrong move for me, saying I wouldn’t make it past the halfway line. Diego Simeone encouraged me to go forward as much as I could,” he said. “He got me into some positions where I thought it was so simple.
