After returning to pre-season training yesterday, Kieran Trippier has been speaking to NUFC TV about Newcastle United new boys Sven Botman and Nick Pope.
The 31-year-old believes we’ve signed a “top quality centre-back” in Botman and an “excellent goalkeeper” in Pope, revealing how his fellow toon teammates were “brilliant” in helping both settle during their first full day on Wednesday.
He also feels the pair will help “push forward as a club” ahead of the new season, with Pope someone he knows particularly well.
The two never actually crossed paths at Burnley, with Pope arriving the season after Trippier joined Tottenham, however the right-back has revealed that he knows the 6ft 6′ stopper “very well” from their time together in the England camp.
Here’s what he had to say about both, followed by his hopes for 2022/23:
“It’s always good to add that extra quality.
“I know Popey very well from [England], he’s obviously an excellent ‘keeper and Sven is a top quality centre-half.
“The lads have been brilliant with them on the first day and it’s great to bring in that quality to help us push forward as a club.”
Trippier then spoke about taking the momentum gathered from the second half of the 2021/22 season into the new campaign, believing we have all the tools to kick on:
“It’s always important [to start well].
“Last season we finished very strongly but this is a new season now, we know our aims and where we want to be as a club and as players.
“Adding quality like Sven and Popey is always going to help us for the next season. We know it’s going to be difficult but we believe in ourselves as a team.
“We need to follow on from how we ended the season last year. But it’s a new season and we know how challenging the Premier League is, especially with the quality that is arriving in this league now.
“But we’re bringing good additions into the team, we’ve got a good team anyway and a good manager, we just need to believe in ourselves and we know how far we can go.”
