Eddie Howe gets emotional ahead of Newcastle United star's St James' Park farewell
Newcastle United right-back Kieran Trippier will bid an emotional farewell to St James’ Park this weekend.
Kieran Trippier will play at St James’ Park for the final time as a Newcastle United player on Sunday.
The Magpies are in Premier League action against relegation-threatened West Ham United with fan group Wor Flags set to pay tribute to Trippier ahead of kick-off.
The 35-year-old has confirmed he will leave Newcastle after four-and-a-half years when his contract expires on June 30.
Trippier was the first signing under the PIF era, arriving from Atletico Madrid in January 2022, and he departs as a hero after helping the club end its 56-year trophy drought by winning the Carabao Cup and twice qualifying for the Champions League.
Eddie Howe pays tribute to Kieran Trippier ahead of farewell appearance
Ahead of Trippier’s Tyneside farewell, head coach Eddie Howe said: “I think he's definitely deserving of that recognition. I think the actual decision to come here in the first place needs to be celebrated because he's gone from a team that was hugely successful in Spain into a team that's fighting relegation in the Premier League.
“Everyone said it was financially motivated initially and I can tell them it wasn't. I think a host of reasons and only Kieran can discuss those, but certainly financial wasn't one of them.
“The challenge of course, returning to the Premier League, hopefully Jason [Tindall] and I played a part in that with our relationship and wanting to take that fight on in his career position was probably a big risk, ut he took it on and I'm so pleased for him that it was rewarded because there's no guarantee that that was going to be the case.
“So the team stayed up and of course then never looked back. It was strange because probably a lot of people forget that he got injured initially and didn't really contribute on the pitch as he would have wanted to initially in our fight against relegation.
“It was more the next season where he then played an unbelievable part in our run to the Champions League. We only lost, I think, it was four games that season. And he was pivotal with the rest of the back four that were magnificent that year and Nick Pope behind them that transformed our defensive output.
“That's probably my biggest memory of him. Then along with the cup final win where I thought he was magnificent that day. Absolutely gigantic performance and he got then the feeling of lifting the cup with Bruno [Guimaraes] and Jamaal [Lascelles].”
Eddie Howe remembers first Kieran Trippier meeting
Trippier has also played an important role off the pitch, with Howe using the right-back’s first speech in front of his teammates as an example of his immense leadership.
Howe said: “I always go back to his first speech that he gave. The training ground looked very different then when he first came to the football club, and I remember Kieran delivering a speech of real leadership, real strength.
“I mean, you come into a new dressing room, and he may have known some of the lads, but that feeling of your first day at a football club is still very, very difficult for a player.
“We were in a relegation battle and he stepped forward and delivered a speech that I was like, ‘oof, that's powerful, that's positive, that's a player within the group now really sort of throwing down the gauntlet to everybody of where we're going to go and what we've got to do to be successful and what we've got to do to stay in the league’.
“I remember leaving that meeting with a really positive impression of Kieran, that how much he'd grown from my first experiences, then how much he'd matured as a person, how much his experiences had helped him at other clubs.
“He unfortunately missed quite a bit of that season through injury, but we then saw the benefit of that when he returned to fitness the next season.
“And together with the other experienced players in the team, I think he sort of helped really lead that team through that season, and he hasn't really changed from that period onwards.
“I think he's still got that desire to be successful, even this week, that desire to win, and I think that speaks volumes for him.”