Annie Kilner has led England’s WAGs in making their way to Germany as she was spotted boarding a private jet from Manchester Airport this morning.
The wife of defender Kyle Walker, 32, was spotted walking up the steps of the aircraft on her way to Dusseldorf ahead of England’s last-16 clash with Slovakia this afternoon.
The fixture comes amid a week of drama between families in the England camp, after Phil Foden’s baby joy as he flew home to welcome his third child after his girlfriend Rebecca Cooke gave birth.
Meanwhile, Kieran Trippier’s wife Charlotte sent fans into a frenzy this week after she posted a cryptic message on Instagram about ‘getting over things’ – as sources have criticised her decision to ‘put her marriage in the public domain’.
Now it has been reported that Annie and Charlotte, who bonded when their husbands were signed at Tottenham Hotspur, may have formed a ‘deadly alliance’ in a show of solidarity amid drama at home.
The women, say friends, became ‘super close’ as they watched their other halves Kyle Walker and Kieran Trippier play in north London.
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.
