WAGs Annie Kilner and Charlotte Tripper type a ‘lethal alliance’

As the girlfriends of two of Tottenham’s biggest name players, Annie Kilner and Charlotte Trippier would regularly be seen sitting in the stands together.

The women, say friends, became ‘super close’ as they watched their other halves Kyle Walker and Kieran Trippier play.

Back in 2015 when they were still in their early 20s, they would also socialise together as they enjoyed the riches that came with being a Premier League star’s partner.

Despite both Walker and Trippier being sold on since, Annie and Charlotte are very much still friends. They share a common bond, in that they’d met their partners while they were still schoolgirls, and grew up with the game.

So when Charlotte, Kieran’s wife of eight years, posted a jaw-dropping and cryptic message on Instagram, footballing insiders were asking the same thing: Is Charlotte following Annie’s playbook?

Using social media as their weapons of choice, how is it that not one but  two of the England squad’s marriages are creating more drama off the pitch than the team on it?

The action began on Tuesday as Trippier and Walker prepared to take on Slovenia in what turned out to be another tedious draw. Charlotte took to her public Instagram to write: ‘Sooner or later you get over the s*** you swore you’d never get over and it’s the best feeling in the world.’

While it is not categorically known that the post was aimed at Trippier, he is believed to have acknowledged that it was. Tellingly, it soon emerged that she’d ‘unfollowed’ her husband – a mortal blow in the world of WAGs.

What came next must have horrified England boss Gareth Southgate. As the match kicked off in Cologne, the country was more interested in what was happening inside the Trippiers’ marriage than in the penalty box.

Indeed, friends of the star were furious at Charlotte’s outburst, and accused her of ‘picking an optimum moment’ to post it. What made the post more pointed was that, while Charlotte has a private Instagram account for her family and close friends, she chose to use her public account to share her apparent marital woes.

Instantly, the Trippier marriage was being compared to that of the Walkers’ – not ideal when you consider Kyle’s affair with Lauryn Goodman, which led to the birth of two children, is still making headlines.

Until this week, Charlotte, 32, has always been known for her privacy and hasn’t – and I’m told will not – be jetting out to Germany with the couple’s three children to watch the games. They have an eight-year-old boy, a four-year-old girl and a two-year-old whose gender they haven’t revealed.

Her absence from the stands hasn’t gone unnoticed, nor has the fact that she hasn’t posted a picture of her and her husband on social media for the last two months.

She also previously described herself on her Instagram page as ‘married’ and listed her interests as: ‘Family. Fashion. Travel.’ But her profile now states: ‘Newcastle. Mummy. Fashion lover. Travel.’

There have been other indicators that all is not well in the Trippier household: last year, Kieran was filmed getting close to a blonde woman in a Newcastle karaoke bar where and his teammates were celebrating United’s qualification for the Champions League.

Not long afterwards, Charlotte and Kieran appeared together in a Prime Video documentary in which she spoke candidly about her struggles when they moved to Spain when her husband was signed for Atletico Madrid.

She said: ‘I was on my own for long. I felt so lonely… about four months in, I was saying, ‘I don’t know if I can stay here, Kieran, I feel depressed. I’ve got no family over here, I’ve got no friends here.’

A source familiar with both Charlotte and Annie tells me: ‘It seems coincidental that they are such good friends, are both clearly having issues in their marriages and are both ensuring that their private lives are being discussed across the country while England are under such scrutiny at the Euros.

‘Annie has become a bit of an expert at getting her voice out there, whether it is through her PR or by directly briefing journalists. Her relationship problems have had everyone gripped. Now it’s the same for Charlotte. It really does seem to be a bit of a deadly WAG alliance that is distracting their husbands and also overshadowing the tournament.

‘Nobody saw Charlotte coming, it didn’t seem like the drama could get any worse. And then it did.’

Indeed, because since the beginning of the tournament, Annie, 30, has been using all her skills, and connections, in a briefing war with her husband’s ex-lover.

Annie enlisted the services of a celebrity PR and insisted that she also represent Walker ‘to ensure they are on the same side’.

Annie and Lauryn have been at odds for several years after Lauryn named Kyle as the father of her two children: Kairo, four, and a ten-month-old girl.

Last week, Lauryn took Kairo to Frankfurt to cheer on his father as he vice-captained the England team against Denmark. Unlike Annie and the rest of the WAGs, there was no private jet to get her there. Along with her grandfather John, she took a commercial flight and stayed in a hotel which she paid for herself near to the stadium.

Still, Annie was said to be ‘furious’. A number of stories then appeared in the media, some blatantly untrue: one claimed that the FA had upped their security to stop Lauryn getting anywhere near the England WAGs, when, in truth, they’d had no idea she was even there, which they confirmed to me.

There have also been attempts to get the Press onside to lambast Lauryn for ‘creating a circus’ at the match, and to drive home the message that Kyle Walker has ‘no emotional relationship’ with Kairo.

‘Annie might not be coming out and saying this stuff but she is behind this all getting out there,’ says an England team insider. ‘It is utterly bizarre that she is doing this while the England team are playing in a huge tournament.

‘She was fuming that Lauryn made it public knowledge that she was at the game. She thinks she should have gone there quietly but it has got to the point now where it seems like Annie doesn’t want Lauryn to have a voice.

‘That’s fine, but during a Euros tournament when your husband is the vice-captain, it is distracting to both him and the team and it seems a silly time to be doing this.

‘Of course, Lauryn isn’t innocent in all of this but she went along, at her own expense, and took her football-loving son to a game. It is just so strange that so many people, Annie included, have such a problem with it.’

However, it isn’t just Walker and Trippier whose names are being bandied around as being responsible for causing drama.

The Mail can also reveal that there are underlying tensions in the squad after two members – whom we aren’t naming – had what is described as a ‘monumental fall-out’ before the Euros, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear.

One source said: ‘The two men were literally going at each other. It’s safe to say that there was no love lost. Luckily, they have managed to pull some strings to keep it out of the Press but that doesn’t mean that there haven’t been repercussions within the England set-up.

‘It has been much talked about among the whole squad and beyond. It is yet another drama.’

Undoubtedly, there are some big decisions ahead for Annie and Charlotte. Both are mothers to young children and will now have to weigh up whether or not they want to continue in their marriages where they enjoy the benefits of being with men who earn a six-figure wage packet each week.

The friend of the two women said: ‘It seems like Annie and Charlotte are kindred spirits right now. They are both strong and won’t be told what to do.’

And, the pal adds, neither are frightened of making sure their truth comes out.

‘Only next time it would be handy if England weren’t playing in a tournament.’