Kieran Trippier reveals the one thing Diego Simeone said he had to improve after Tottenham exit

Kieran Trippier says that Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone told him that he needed to improve his defending after his final season at Tottenham.

Trippier, currently playing for England at Euro 2024, left Tottenham for a new chapter in Madrid in the summer of 2019 after Mauricio Pochettino's side had reached the Champions League final in the city, losing to Liverpool. In a new podcast interview with Gary Neville, the full-back spoke about his final difficult year at Spurs and his exit from the club.

"[I needed] a change. I had a talk with Pochettino and Daniel Levy at the time and I was not getting the answers I wanted, in the sense of whether I’m a part of the plans or not. But that’s fine, players and managers come and go, and it is about trying to find that next step," said Trippier on The Overlap, in association with Sky Bet.

"Atlético Madrid came in and I just said to the manager straight away that I wanted to sign for them. I was then in Madrid straight away and I have never looked back since, it was an unbelievable journey."

Trippier admitted that Simeone soon told him bluntly what he needed to fix about his game and it would certainly work as the right-back played his part in Atletico winning the La Liga title in his first season.

"When I went to Atlético Madrid people were saying it was the wrong move for me, saying I wouldn’t make it past the halfway line. Diego Simeone encouraged me to go forward as much as I could," he said. "He got me into some positions where I thought it was so simple.

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"When I first went there, Simeone said, “I need to improve your defending” - as blunt as that. I was a bit suspect [defending] in my last year at Tottenham, getting caught out, playing people on side and it’s all about fine margins. I just wanted the season to end [at Tottenham], I felt like I was getting suffocated because I wasn’t performing.

"Simeone worked with me for so many hours, just me and him on the training pitch after training, showing me clips of other players. With Simeone, if you break his trust that is it, you’re done. It is about being on time, respect for everybody else and on the pitch, you have to run. If you do not run for him, it doesn’t matter how much you are paid, you are gone. It is there for everyone to see, you have to run for him.

"He always used to put me up against players like Thomas Lemar or [Yannick] Carrasco, different types of wingers where Carrasco is someone who will chop you and Lemar is one of those who will just run in behind you. He was very clever in the players he would put me up against. I look back on it now and I think he did it on purpose to see how I would cope. He also used to work me on positioning, when to go forward, when not to go forward. He was intelligent, and I learned so much from him."

Trippier also spoke about his introduction to life at Tottenham after signing for Burnley in 2015 and the training shock he was in for under Pochettino and his assistant manager Jesus Perez.

“When I was a Burnley, I probably weighed at around 76/77kg and now I'm about 70/71kg. Obviously when I was at Burnley if you look at the nutrition and the resources we had, it was nothing compared to what I had a Tottenham and I was in for a big shock. When I was at Burnley, I wasn’t professional, shall we say," he said.

"When I went to Tottenham, you walk in and you see Hugo Lloris, Harry Kane top pros. It probably took me the first week where I thought, this is going to be tough. Then I was in the altitude chamber for a good five or six months. Jesus Perez put us in there after training.

"The training was relentless as it is, but I was in there after every training session for around 35-40 minutes. It was about fat-burning exercises, we would be on the treadmill, then the rower – it was me, Toby [Alderweireld], Sonny [Heung-min] was in there a couple of times, Kevin Wimmer – we all signed during the same window and were all in for a shock. It was relentless and tough but after six months you get used to it."

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