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Kyle Walker has revealed the big difference he saw instantly when he first showed up for pre-season at Manchester City after leaving Tottenham Hotspur.
Kyle Walker spent eight years of his career at Tottenham Hotspur and developed into one of the Premier League’s best full-backs at White Hart Lane.
However, the former Spurs right-back had a fall-out with Mauricio Pochettino in 2017 after the Argentine preferred Kieran Trippier over Walker towards the end of the 2016-17 campaign.
Spurs sold the England international to Man City in a £45m deal that summer, and the full-back has now revealed what his first impressions were when he made the move to the Etihad Stadium.
Kyle Walker initially had regrets over leaving Tottenham
Spurs had finished second in the 2016-17 season, one place above Man City, who had to settle for third in Pep Guardiola’s first season in the Premier League.
Walker has now revealed that when he first made his way to City for pre-season, he feared that he had made a mistake, given the lack of intensity in training compared to what he was used to at Spurs.
The England international told The Overlap: “I remember getting off in the pre-season [at Manchester City] and you’ve got Kun [Sergio] Aguero who’s just balling around training – bad trainer, bad trainer but he turned it on in the game.
“I got back to my hotel room after and speaking to my dad saying, ‘I think I’ve made a mistake here.’ I went from a Pochettino team of running hard and we’re going to run all over you, dominating that area and also with a little bit of quality from certain players we’re going to win the game, to looking now and thinking we’re doing hardly any running in pre-season because Pep doesn’t like running – we did a little bit but it was mainly with the ball.”
Walker reveals who his fittest Spurs teammate was
Walker was an elite athlete in his pomp, often using his power, speed and engine to mark wingers out of the game.
The Burnley man has revealed that there was one midfielder at Spurs who had even better endurance than him, describing the player as an ‘animal’.
Walker added: “We had the famous thing called the Gacon [running test] – whoever played for Tottenham will know the Gacon. It starts at 145m and you have 45-seconds to get there, you then walk up 5m [to another cone] and have to run back.
“It’s a continuous thing and there were 16 or 17 cones. The only person that I’ve ever seen complete it was Dele Alli – he was an animal at running.”
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