Kyle Walker wasn’t the only one taking his eye off the ball as woeful England trailed Slovakia by a goal to nil before snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in Gelsenkirchen on Sunday evening.
Watching from the stands at Veltins-Arena after flying into Germany via private jet, Annie Kilner was seen feeding their baby son Rezon while Walker and his teammates struggled to make an impact during a dreadful last 16 match at Euro 2024.
Kilner, 30, has travelled from her Cheshire home with all four of the couple’s children after their marriage was rocked by the full-back’s admission to fathering a child out of wedlock with influencer Lauryn Goodman.
And friends claim she has the full backing of her fellow WAGS during the tournament, with England set to play Switzerland in the quarter-finals on Saturday after coming from behind to beat Slovakia 2-1.
A source told MailOnline: ‘Annie flew out via private jet with all four of her children to support Kyle and the team for the first knockout match against Slovakia.
Kyle Walker’s wife Annie Kilner was spotted feeding her baby son Rezon as she joined her fellow WAGs in the stands during the Three Lions’ last-16 tie on Sunday
Annie has travelled from her Cheshire home with all four of the couple’s children after their marriage was rocked by his admission to fathering a child with Lauryn Goodman
‘They adore watching the squad, cheering on their Dad and mixing with the other families pitchside. It’s what they’re used to, having grown up surrounded by the world of football and nothing will change this.
‘Knowing they’re cheering him on from the stands, alongside other members of his family, means the world to him.
‘Annie is surrounded by love from the other WAGS who admire her strength and resilience. The WAGs recently pledged their support amidst the circus involving Lauryn and want Annie to know they have her and Kyle’s back.
‘They’re all a big family no matter what happens between the adults and pitch together to support the young ones amongst them.’
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’.
While it is unclear who the post was aimed at, it is understood Kieran has taken the words to be directed at himself. Meanwhile Annie, who is the first WAG to be spotted on her way to Germany, has been dealing with drama in her own private life for several months after he was named as the father of TV star Lauryn Goodman’s children.
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.
Kyle was among the starting 11 for England’s crucial tie, which got off to a lacklustre start with Slovakia scoring in the first 25 minutes
Friends claim Annie has the full backing of her fellow WAGS during the tournament, and she’s been ‘surrounded by love’
Annie is said to have formed a ‘deadly alliance’ with Charlotte Trippier, the wife of Kieran, who posted a cryptic message on Instagram this week
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.
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.
Annie was previously spotted among the WAGs watching England’s second group match against Denmark, but opted against staying in Germany during the tournament
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.’
