Carlo Ancelotti confirms Napoli “evaluating” Kieran Trippier

It’s already been strongly implied that Tottenham Hotspur will be undergoing a bit of a player overhaul in this summer’s transfer window, and one of the players linked away from the club is Kieran Trippier. The “Bury Beckham” has been Italian-newspaper-linked with Napoli for a few weeks, which usually doesn’t mean much because it’s Italian newspapers.

But get this — first there was a report from Gianluca DiMarzio that said Trippier’s wife had visited Naples in recent days, and now Calciomercato has actual quotes from Naples manager Carlo Ancelotti saying that Trippier is a person of interest.

Here are the quotes, run through Google Translate and slightly edited.

“I don’t like talking about players from other teams. [Kieran] Trippier’s wife in Naples? I honestly don’t know, but Naples is a beautiful city, there are people who come on holiday. But [PSV Eindhoven winger Chucky] Lozano and Trippier are players who we are evaluating, then later there is everything else that is much more complex. Negotiations, players who prefer other things. These are among the players we are interested in.”

Those are actual quotes! From Anceloti! That’s enough to ramp this rumor up from ehhh to Actually a Thing™.

The time is probably right for Spurs to offload Trippier, though they could probably have gotten a whole lot more money for him if they had done so last summer after the World Cup. Serge Aurier is also linked away from the club, so it’s quite possible that Spurs are looking at a couple of different options for that right back position.