Trippier: 'I saw Harry's header in 2015... this one was similar'

Kieran Trippier watched Harry Kane’s headed winner at home to Arsenal from February, 2015, on social media – and then saw him practically re-enact it on the pitch to settle the north London derby again on Saturday!

The striker rose above two defenders in the box with tremendous physical strength to guide a header inside Petr Cech’s right-hand post shortly after half-time, giving us a 1-0 win at Wembley.

The inch-perfect out-swinging cross from the left flank by Ben Davies was spookily similar to the one supplied by our former midfielder Nabil Bentaleb almost three years ago to the day, when Harry nodded home in the closing minutes to register a 2-1 win at White Hart Lane.

And that wasn’t lost on right-back Kieran as he reflected on another high-profile triumph at the national stadium.

“I saw the clip of that goal where Nabil crossed it two days ago,” revealed ‘Trips’. “I watched it on my social media when I was looking at the last game when we beat them at the Lane and the previous ones to that.

“You put the ball in the air and Harry is phenomenal up there. The power that he got behind the header was incredible and he’s an unbelievable player. It’s no surprise to me that he’s scored the winning goal again and hopefully there’s many more to come.”

Above: Kieran climbs above Henrikh Mkhitaryan on Saturday.

Harry himself admitted there were similarities to his derby winner in 2015, even suggesting that this one was more difficult to execute: “It was (close to a mirror image). I’d say this one was probably a bit harder – I was at full-stretch, timed it well and it was great to see it go in. I had a few headers in the game and that was probably the hardest one so I’ll take it.”

For Kieran, meanwhile, it was important to see out the victory. After a hatful of missed chances, Alexandre Lacazette almost found a stoppage-time equaliser for Arsenal, only to see his effort trickle wide of the far post.

“They were bound to build a bit of pressure, 1-0 down with a minute to go, long balls coming into the box but I thought we defended well and it’s another massive clean sheet,” he added. “When Hugo comes sprinting out off his line, obviously it’s going to put the striker off and happily it didn’t go in. We’ll take the three points.”