Kieran Trippier has no excuses for the defeat at Aston Villa

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Newcastle United captain Kieran Trippier offered up no excuses in his post-match assessment of the 3-0 defeat to Aston Villa on Saturday.

Much like his manager had before him, Kieran Trippier was calm with his responses when he faced scrutiny at full time.

Speaking to NUFC TV after the game, Trippier said he felt like Newcastle weren’t at it from the start: “I don’t think we were right from minute one. It was one of those games where we changed the way we play, we went direct they were finding pockets. They played very well to be fair to them but it was one of those days where it wasn’t meant to be for us.  Now we have to dust ourselves down and put this behind us.

“They wanted it more than us today which is very strange with how we’ve performed all season but now it’s about regrouping, recovering and focusing on Tottenham.”

He was asked what he thought was lacking from this performance compared to the previous five wins and Trippier had some thoughts but didn’t want to be drawn into making excuses, saying: “I think it’s just playing how we usually play, on the front foot playing with intensity. We were loose out of possession, myself included at times, but listen it’s no time for excuses, we’ve just got to recover now.

“Full credit to Aston Villa they played better than us today and we move on.”

As Trippier alluded to, he didn’t have the best of games today. The £12million man was hailed by Alan Shearer as ‘terrific‘ recently, but I don’t think he’d ahve been so complimentary today. And that goes for all the lads in black and white today.

It was a bad defeat but it was against an in-form Aston Villa side, riding the crest of wave under their manager Unai Emery. As fantastic as Newcastle have been all season, we can’t expect them to win every game, or even play well every game, they’re still human.

It stings, but we move on. Tottenham failed to capitalise on the situation falling to a defeat against relegation candidates, Bournemouth later on. So it still remains that if we beat Spurs at home next week we open up a six point gap between us and them and we still have a game in hand.

That Champions League spot is still ours to lose. The Villa result is just a blip. Like Eddie Howe and Trippier said, we have to put it behind us and move on.