Kieran Trippier drops huge hint over his future on Instagram - Time to say goodbye?

Kieran Trippier was snapped heading out to the Middle East by a Newcastle United fan who saw the England star checking in at Newcastle airport.

With zero context at the time, everybody assumed that Trippier was heading out Saudi Arabia to discuss a move to the Saudi Pro League as has been the rumour for a while.

It took a few hours, but eventually, The Chronicle wrote that they'd been told by the club that Trippier was just heading out for some R&R while he enjoyed his extended leave following representing England at Euro 2024.

We're not sure how many people believed that, but it's safe to say that number will be dramatically fewer now.

Trippier has been meeting with representatives from Al-Ettifaq

Several people had spotted on Trippier's Instagram that he'd posted about a 'meeting' that went well in Dubai whilst tagging someone whose profile notably says "Head of scouting @ettifaq".

This suggests that could be about to link up with Steven Gerrard who is still the manager at Al-Ettifaq.

Trippier moving to Saudi has, as we've said, been a long-standing rumour, actually dating back to January. We had heard that the move was likely to happen this summer before the end of the season but as we don't do ITK stuff here, we thought we'd just let it play out.

Would Trippier really post about a potential transfer before anything was agreed?

Of course, we could all, once again be putting two and two together and coming up with carrot, but why would Trippier be meeting with a representative from Al-Ettifaq if it wasn't transfer related?

At the same time, though, why would he post about it on Instagram knowing he was still contracted to Newcastle?

Time will surely reveal all sooner rather than later, hopefully, anyway.