Eddie Howe may have shied away from comparison to Diego Simeone, but Kieran Trippier wears a smile as cunning as Newcastle's underhand tactics when the likeness of the two managers is put to him.
'Yes, I love it,' he says as we discuss his team's alleged 's***housery'. Given Trippier won La Liga with Simeone at Atletico Madrid, you might well expect him to embrace the wiliness of such ways.
This, however, is eye-widening relish. It is also a two-fingered response — or two-footed, even — to Erik ten Hag, the Manchester United boss who ahead of Sunday's Carabao Cup final, has branded Newcastle as 'annoying'.