It sounds like Kieran Trippier will miss the majority of our remaining fixtures this season, despite the fact surgery on his broken foot went well last week.
Speaking on The Athletic’s latest Pod On The Tyne podcast, Chris Waugh revealed he’s likely to be sidelined for another ‘8-10 weeks’ – meaning he could sit out of our next NINE league games and be absent until the end of April.
The 31-year-old fractured the fifth metatarsal bone in his left foot during our 1-0 win over Aston Villa, meaning Emil Krafth was forced to fill in at right-back over the weekend in Javier Manquillo’s absence.
Here’s what Waugh had to say when asked for an update on Trippier’s foot injury:
“It was rather odd after Eddie Howe’s press conference on Friday because the injury update was a positive one.
“And yet it got reflected in the negative way as Howe said, ‘I hope he’s going to be back before the end of the season’ because the surgery has gone well.
“Then a lot of the headlines elsewhere seem to be ‘Eddie Howe worried that Kieran Trippier is going to be out for the rest of the season.’
“So it was a little bit of an odd update, but basically it was a positive one.
“The surgery went well. In theory, if if he reacts well to that, it means that he’s going to be recovering well over the course of the next few weeks.
“So yeah, it’s going to be a good few weeks, probably eight to 10 from now before we see Kieran Trippier back at Newcastle shirt, but the surgery went well.“
If this is the case, it looks like Trippier will miss the following games (at the very minimum) if he’s set for at least another eight weeks out:
- West Ham (A) – Saturday, 19th February (1-1 draw)
- Brentford (A) – Saturday, 26th February
- Brighton (H) – Saturday 5th March,
- Southampton (A) – Thursday 10th March
- Chelsea (A) – Sunday 13th March
- Everton (A) – Thursday, 17th March
- Crystal Palace (H) – Sunday, 20th March
- Tottenham (A) – Saturday, 2nd April
- Wolves (H) – Saturday, 9th April
- Leicester (H) – Saturday, 16th April
If he’s missing for a total of 10 weeks from this point onwards, he could also miss the trip to Norwich on April 23rd and clash with Liverpool at St James’ Park on April 30th before a potential return in May.
Who knows – he could return way ahead of schedule – however it seems pretty certain that the England international will definitely miss a large chunk of our remaining fixtures.
