Trippier belongs at the top
BURNLEY FULL-BACK IS NO DANI ALVES-LITE
ACOUPLE of weeks ago, I asked Burnley if I could sit Sam Vokes and Danny Ings down for a feature. Yes, they said, though it soon soon transpired I wasn’t the only one. Local papers, national papers, Sky, BBC, Radio 5,Welsh TV – the pair were sick to death of answering questions.
And poor old Keith Treacy, who on the day I was there spent an hour in the corridor waiting for Vokes to give him a lift home, must be even more fed up!
But when you’ve scored 40 goals between you for the fairytale club of the season, you are always going to be big news.
Yet Saturday’s emphatic 3-1 win over Forest showed us that Burnley are far more than a two-man team.
Because in right-back Kieran Trippier, the Clarets have a player who, while less glamorous, is arguably more talented than either of his limelit team-mates.
Named in the Championship team of the year last season, Trippier was a player who always came with a “but”. Quick, adventurous, lethal on the cross, but did those attacking instincts make him a liability at the back? Certainly there were times in his youth when wily wingers would exploit the space he left behind.
But on Saturday, Trippier proved he has matured, that he is no longer a mere Dani Alves-lite. Yes, he was still charging forward, one majestic cross teeing up Vokes to notch an incredible 13th assist of the season.
Yet there was also a sublime covering tackle, a clearance off the line. And it took Forest’s £2m Algerian international Djamel Abdoun just 20 minutes to realise his interests would be better served on the opposite flank, his fire utterly quelled by Trippier’s energy and pace.
As Vokes said in the tunnel afterwards, there is no better full-back outside the Premier League. I’d venture there are one or two in there who aren’t quite up to scratch either.
Had circumstances been different, Trippier might already be in the top flight. A trainee at Man City from the age of nine, it was his misfortune to turn pro just as the tide of money swept in, the resulting flotsam of world class stars leaving little room for local talent.
Captain of the reserves and a winner of the 2008 FA youth Cup, he would have been fast-tracked to the first team just a few years earlier.
Instead, he was one of 10 members of that side – along with current club mate Ben Mee – to be ushered out of the door without making an appearance.
For the best, as it transpires. Stuck behind Pablo Zabaleta at the Etihad, Micah Richards has stagnated to the point that a summer exit seems inevitable.
And Dedryck Boyata, another 2008 contemporary, has so far played fewer games in his five-year career than Trippier has played this season.
They have stood still. Trippier has improved. Which is why, this time next year, Burney’s hidden gem will be hotter property than either of them.
Because one way or another, the 23-year-old is heading for the top flight this summer. And like Luke Shaw and Nathaniel Clyne, he will prove it is where he belongs.