BACARY SAGNA, Gael Clichy, Aleksandar Kolarov and Pablo Zabaleta just weren’t doing the job for Pep Guardiola. There was no shortage of full backs at Manchester City, but there was a shortage of full backs who could satisfy the Catalan coach. And so all four were cleared out and £125 million was splurged on replacements. Kyle Walker was one of those.
Initially, Guardiola wanted Dani Alves to fill City’s troublesome right back slot. After all, who better to perform the Alves role than the man himself? Ultimately, the Brazilian chose to join Paris Saint-Germain rather than join his former coach at the Etihad, convincing City that Walker was worth £53 million – a then world record fee for a defender.
Much was made of City’s signing of Ederson that summer. Guardiola places more emphasis on goalkeepers than any other coach in the modern game. His famed philosophy makes superstars of forwards, harnessing them to reach heights unreachable under any other manager, but it’s rooted in the way his keepers play. At Barcelona, Guardiola had Victor Valdes. At Bayern Munich, he had Manuel Neuer. And at City he now had Ederson.
The addition of Walker was just as pivotal in the development of Man City as a record-breaking, title-winning juggernaut, though. The England international gave Guardiola the outlet down the right side he needed to stretch the pitch and create space for others, just as Alves did for his great Barca team. Walker might not have been City’s player of the season as they strolled to the title last term, but few were as important to Guardiola’s side.
So what happened? City have lost three of their last four Premier League games, slipping seven points behind pace-setters Liverpool. This slide was down to more than just one thing, one player, but the poor form of Walker was undoubtedly a factor. It’s why Guardiola dropped the 28-year-old for Sunday’s trip to Southampton.
Sat on the bench, hunched up in a club-branded jacket, Walker watched as Man City turned in a more balanced performance with Danilo at right back. Guardiola criticised Walker for the mistakes made in the home defeat to Crystal Palace before Christmas, but it’s not just individual errors that have seen him dropped to the bench.
Guardiola’s teams are defined by their intensity. Some players are incapable of playing at such a high tempo, with several such players cut free following Guardiola’s first season as Man City boss. But Walker was not one of those players. In fact, he became an ideological leader for Guardiola. A precedent-setter.
Yet that intensity, the thing that made Walker so special, so effective last season, has been dulled. He no longer surges up and down the right side with such certainty. This has robbed City of both an attacking outlet and a defensive kingpin. Guardiola’s team plays at such a tempo that the transition between defence and attack can take place within seconds. Players are expected to be in two places at once, and that's where Walker is letting his side down.
There were points against Palace, the last time Walker started for City, when Ederson was looking to where Walker would usually be, only to see him stranded further up the pitch in a position unreachable through a pass out from the back. This disrupted Man City’s entire game plan. Palace’s win over the Premier League champions was something of a fluke, but it was a consequence of a greater disturbance of City’s usual game.
Guardiola has done more to set the zeitgeist of the modern game than anyone else, but he is nothing without players who can carry out his instructions. If City go on to concede their Premier League crown it won’t be because of a flaw in Guardiola’s philosophy. It’ll be because of a disconnect between that philosophy and his players. Walker has come to embody this.
