Southgate praises ‘impressive’ Kieran Trippier

Kieran Trippier’s fine end of season form for Tottenham has been rewarded with his first England call-up by manager Gareth Southgate.

The Spurs defender could now be in-line to make his first ever appearance for the Three Lions following an injury to Liverpool full-back Nathaniel Clyne.

And Southgate was full of praise for the former Burnley man ahead of England’s World Cup qualifier with Scotland and friendly against France.

“I watched him a lot at Burnley, he’s got a good mentality, his play in the final third of the pitch is of a high quality, he’s one of the best crossers in the league I think and his selection of pass is good,” Southgate said.

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“It’s obviously been an unusual situation, we’ve had two of our best full-backs both at Tottenham and it’s been nice from our point of view that Kieran’s had matches towards the end of the season. That’s enabled us to have a more realistic case for picking him because he’s somebody that we’ve been following right the way through.

“Kieran impressed me at Burnley in the season they had in the Premier League when he was there and I think he’s finished the season very well with Tottenham.”

The injury to Clyne means Trippier is now once more in direct competition with Spurs teammate Kyle Walker for a starting place.

Southgate added: “We’ll be without Nathaniel Clyne now – he’d been carrying an injury and that’s kind of why we named three right-backs. We thought that might be a bit of an issue, so we’ll be with Kieran and Kyle Walker.”