'My standards have dropped' - Kieran Trippier gives brutally honest assessment of Newcastle form with England star enduring error-strewn December

Former Magpies striker Chris Wood scored a hat-trick to secure Forest a much-needed victory at St James' Park on Boxing Day. Newcastle took the lead through Alexander Isak's first-half penalty but Forest came back and punished Eddie Howe's men on the counter attack. After the match, Trippier was very critical of his own performances this month, which has included mistakes in defeats to Everton, Tottenham, and Chelsea.

He told Amazon Prime: "It's been a challenge for the team going from not playing in Europe playing three-game weeks some players are new to that. Sometimes when you don't mean it like myself - my standards have dropped - I'm old enough and experienced to talk about my own performances and know they're nowhere near as good as the standards I've set recently. I don't shy about it, I've had a lot of setbacks in my career and this is another one where I need to keep going and believing and I've always got that belief to bounce back."

The wheels are somewhat coming off for Newcastle at present. They are out of the Carabao Cup, the Champions League, and have lost four of their last five Premier League matches. Injuries have not helped their cause but they are falling behind in the race for Europe.

Newcastle will hope the start of 2024 is better than the end of 2023 as they kick off the new year with a tough away trip to Liverpool on January 1. Five days later they take on bitter rivals Sunderland in the FA Cup before hosting Manchester City on January 13 in the Premier League in a tough run of games for the north east outfit.