The end-of-season international break didn’t go as planned for England right-back Kyle Walker.
Manchester City veteran Walker bore much of the brunt of the criticism – along with manager Thomas Tuchel – after the Three Lions’ friendly defeat against Senegal at the City Ground.
It’s become a theme of England matches. Walker, 35, has played 96 times for his country but his selection is often seen as a symbol of successive managers’ inability to move on from a player out of form.
Manchester City star Kyle Walker’s Tottenham confession
Picking Walker is easy to justify from a manager’s point of view. He’s enjoyed huge success in his career and offers experience at the highest level as well as the kind of pace any gaffer wants in their team.
His record in eight years at Man City is unimpeachable. Walker has won the Premier League six times, not to mention a host of cup competitions at home and abroad, but his one regret stems from elsewhere.
Walker, who spent the second half of the season in Serie A with AC Milan and is ranked at no.5 in FourFourTwo’s list of the best Premier League defenders of all time, was snapped up by Tottenham Hotspur early in his career.
He played more than 200 times for Spurs but it wasn’t until his move to Manchester that his collection of medals got started.
After Spurs finished the 2024-25 season as winners of the Europa League, Walker admitted that he was ‘envious’ and took the unusual step of confessing that he’d have swapped a trophy won with Man City for a moment of glory at Spurs.
“I’d probably give up one Premier League title, not the first, to have won that Europa League with Tottenham,” he said on the Kyle Walker Podcast.
“I know what it means. I’d probably give my second. It’s hard to give one away, but for what that moment meant – to be in that Spurs squad that won a trophy.”
Picking and choosing between titles is a marker of just how much Walker and Man City have benefited from his move away from North London in 2017.
Walker tends to be popular with supporters of his former clubs, including several where he played on loan before making the grade at Spurs and becoming a senior player at a club that won it all.
But his latest loan at San Siro was short-lived and Walker’s immediate future is up in the air. The Rossoneri chose not to sign him on a permanent basis and he only has one year left on his contract at the Etihad Stadium.
Another loan away to end time at City is a real possibility but no decision has yet been made about the final year of his deal.
