From our special correspondent at St James’ Park,
It’s hard to be a defender and a dad in the age of YouTube compilations. You may be an England international, captain and star of Newcastle, but nothing will amaze your offspring more than golazos and a signature goal celebration. Kieran Trippier, visiting the Newcastle – PSG monitoring conference, experiences it at home. “My son is a complete fan of Kylian Mbappé, he watches his videos on YouTube,” regrets the Magpies defender with amusement.
The latter will have the difficult task of defending the French international, which Luis Enrique promises “100%” on Wednesday. Nothing that scares Trippier, who at the age of 32 has seen others pass. “For me it’s a challenge, I’m ready. I want to play against great players, I have already played against a lot of good wingers and good players. I want to play at that level. I like this kind of challenge. »
Théo gave Lucas information about Newcastle
Newcastle coach Eddie Howe also had his say on Kylian Mbappé, who was on the lips of all English colleagues. “It will be very hard for us to stop him but our defense has played very well recently. It depends on our collective work. We will do our best to face the one who is one of the best in the world at the moment. »
The Toon manager also urges his team not to let themselves be overwhelmed by the event – Newcastle’s return to C1 for 20 years – because the risk would be to create too much space for the Parisian arrows, Mbappé included. “That will be part of our challenge, working well with the ball, having the right balance, not leaving too much space behind, and if you look at the last few matches it’s something we have done very well. »
Paris knows what to expect, especially since Théo Hernandez gave some tips to Lucas, also present at a press conference at St James’Park. “Theo told me that it’s a very solid team defensively with offensive players who go quite quickly on the counter-attack. » Nothing we don’t know, but it’s always a catch. For the French defender, the key is elsewhere anyway. It will be up to us to get into the match well and hold on until the end. We know that if we are focused for 90 minutes, we will have our chances and we can win this match. »