Emotional Kieran Trippier must stay at Newcastle after his game-saving appearance on Sunday

Newcastle United vice-captain Kieran Trippier has been strongly rumoured to be heading for the exit as Tino Livramento gets the nod to start at right-back.

There have been many reports that Kieran Trippier is unhappy at Newcastle due to being dropped to second-choice right-back behind Tino Livramento, and the media is desperate to push the narrative that he's been "stripped" of the captaincy, which is simply not true.

The captaincy reshuffle has seen Trippier retain the same position in the leadership group, but with Bruno Guimaraes, who is likely to start more games, handed the armband while Jamaal Lascelles takes on a club captain role. Nothing changes for Tripps in that regard.

The 33-year-old is going through a rough spell in his personal life and was shown during the game yesterday on the bench with his head in his hands, then at full-time he was clearly very emotional.

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Trippier galvanised the side after his introduction on the hour

All of that aside though, Trippier came off the bench on the hour mark along with Harvey Barnes and the duo completely changed the direction of the game.

Barnes' running and determination to get forward got Newcastle back on the front foot, but Trippier's leadership got the team organised and riled up enough to get back into things.

We've been very open to the idea of Trippier leaving given his age, his poor form in the second half of last season and his injury problems during the season too, but after seeing what a difference he made yesterday we have changed our minds.

What Trippier brings to the club cannot be replaced

We always maintained that Trippier's leadership and influence would be difficult to replace, but seeing it in action again yesterday reminded us just how vital he is.

It's not that his qualities would be difficult to replace ... it would be impossible.

He may be a high earner, we could even still recoup our £12 million outlay and even profit off his sale, but we'd lose more than we're willing to by letting him go. We just hope that he and Eddie Howe can compromise when it comes to first-team opportunities because as much as we love him, we do need to see Tino starting regularly so he can get some consistency built up.