Pep Guardiola's admission last night that Kyle Walker had asked to leave Manchester City to “explore opportunities abroad” shows how far the right-back's stock has fallen at the Etihad.
Throughout City's dominance of the Premier League, Guardiola has shown that he is a man who will defend his players fiercely. Support them in surprisingly poor times, support them in the face of public scandal.
He has relented on that approach at times this season: he spoke openly about individual errors on the eve of the 2-0 defeat to Juventus and lit a fire under Jack Grealish by admitting Savinho was in “better form” six days ago. But he is a man, like the rest of us, who had run out of all other logical reasons for City's discomfort.
Over the course of this miserable and tortured career, Guardiola did not place blame on individuals, believing that errors were the result of more general deficiencies. Anxiety seeped in, an uncertainty, clearly evident in the capitulation against Manchester United last month.
Looking at the match footage between their defeat to Bournemouth on November 2 and the defeat against Man United more than a month later, it is reasonable to estimate that 16 errors contributed to the opposition scoring.
However, official statistics do not paint such a gloomy picture. Those figures will be in the single digits, and that brings us to Walker, who was not in the team during Man City's 8-0 thrashing of Salford on Saturday. The leader of the men in this group voted twice to be awarded the captain's armband.
Manchester City captain Kyle Walker asked to leave the club to “explore opportunities abroad”
His on-field struggles come amid a £27million divorce battle with wife Annie Kilner (left).
Pep Guardiola has put a lot of faith in Walker, but the right-back is now becoming a liability
According to the absolute definition of a defensive error, which Opta uses, he had not committed any sin during City's terrible run. Not a single one. Watching the goals and with his eyes, he was the protagonist in five of them.
Playing with Daniel Muñoz onside at Crystal Palace. Trapped under a corner for Maxence Lacroix to head in unopposed in the same game. A misunderstanding with Rubén Días at Liverpool. Allowing Timo Werner to put him ahead against Tottenham while playing chicken with the winger.
And probably the clearest example of his wider problems came 24 hours after Guardiola spoke in Turin. Weston McKennie's sweet volley put the Champions League tie out of City's reach and the visitors, at first glance, looked collectively exposed.
As McKennie passes Ederson, Walker can be seen walking backwards from the right-back position, ending up at least five yards from the moment of impact. McKennie had the entire penalty area to himself. The cross still went into a dangerous area, but it is a dangerous area that you can expect your right back to occupy.
“(We've always) run like a desperate team,” Guardiola said in December, describing his hunger and desire. When McKennie walked away, that didn't seem to be the case.
Walker is by no means the only problem at City at the moment, but he is a symptom of their woes. A captain who, according to sources, has been playing injured for more than a month, although Guardiola has not mentioned it in his media functions. A captain who, sources say, has become quiet and reserved on the training ground, and who flattered himself that he cheated in a recent training match with the academy kids. A captain whose wife and mother of his four children, Annie Kilner, filed for divorce in October and has reportedly since ruled out her bid for his £27million fortune.
City have won 14 games in all competitions this season and only two of them have come when Walker (like other internationals, he had a controlled period of rest at the start of the campaign) started. One of them was Watford at home in the Carabao Cup.
These are dismal numbers for one of the greatest full-backs to ever grace the Premier League, a mainstay of Guardiola's various super teams. Many scoffed at the initial £45m fee City paid Tottenham in 2017, but the money was returned and then some.
Now, however, he wears that look that is becoming common among City stars: a confused face twisted with pain. He still has 18 months left to fulfill the three-year contract that City handed him after the treble, in a bid not to lose any more experience following the departures of Ilkay Gundogan and Riyad Mahrez, but his best days are behind him and he has now confirmed who is looking for a new challenge.
City have won 14 games in all competitions this season and only two of them came when Walker started; He played despite not being 100 per cent fit at times this season.
He has been slow to react to dangerous situations, including Weston McKennie's goal during City's defeat to Juventus in December.
City rejected interest from the Saudi Pro League last summer and instead ruled out Joao Cancelo for good. Of the two, Cancelo's departure was significantly more pressing and Walker had bounced back from patchy form last season by winning a fourth consecutive title.
It's been a few months and it's a confused mind here. He suffered abhorrent online racist abuse in the wake of Juventus, sent on Instagram shortly after leaving the stadium. He has become the model of mediocrity among some fans, both those attending the game and those watching from afar, but that went from criticism to prejudice. Walker called it “unacceptable” and is absolutely right to highlight it.
No one can pinpoint what has happened to his game so quickly. As of December, at 21.9 mph, his top speed this season is the same as 2021, although almost 2 mph less than his record set in the year of the triple. His 18.9 sprints per game are down from previous years, but not by a significant margin. Opponents have dribbled against him 0.9 times per game, the same as in 2023 but two tenths more than last season.
The only metric that goes down is interceptions every 90 minutes. That stands at 0.3, while their overall average is around 0.8. Perhaps mental acuity is actually more important than legs.
Would a sensible Walker normally throw himself to the ground when brushed by Rasmus Hojlund in Sunday's Manchester derby? Roy Keane suggested it on Sky Sports, but there is no catalog of these frankly embarrassing and pathetic moments throughout a golden career.
“It's better than that,” Micah Richards said on Sky Sports. Keane replied: 'Is it? I'm not so sure.
On Dutch television, Frank de Boer went further: his employers tweeted that he had “exploded” after watching the melodrama. 'If he watches that clip again, surely he can't take himself seriously anymore?' DeBoer said. 'It makes me furious. This seems ridiculous to me. And he's even still lying on the ground. “This is ruining our game of football.”
Walker was one of the first City players out of the tunnel after United's improbable late show (again, due to a catalog of errors) and he simply hasn't looked good all season. Former City winger Samir Nasri suggested on Canal+ that “things off the pitch” are affecting “the worst defensive season of his career”.
Forceful on Nasri's part, while making the bleeding clear. Kilner's filing scrapping his divorce plans is reportedly the latest development in a sordid home life, which Walker has expressed remorse for after having two children with Lauryn Goodman.
Their son was conceived while Walker, who committed a series of misdemeanors during the pandemic, including hosting a sex party, was separated from Kilner.
Walker's confused thinking may have contributed to him falling to the ground following a confrontation with Rasmus Hojlund during the Manchester derby.
Walker fell to the ground while pretending to have been headbutted, but replays showed it was another embarrassing moment in a difficult season for the England international.
His young daughter was not and the recent child support trial ended with Judge Edward Hess ordering the England international to pay Goodman £1.8 million to buy a property in Sussex, plus more than £100,000 in additional fees. Walker pays £12,500 a month in child support. Goodman was described as possessing “insatiable greed” by a spokesman for Walker, accused of using him as an “indefinite checkbook.”
In the wake of Walker's social media posts about being a victim of racism in December, Goodman responded in support and claimed he had “abandoned” his two children with her.
This is the backdrop to Walker's season and with all that, it's no wonder he doesn't have his sights set. But the main mental attribute that the 34-year-old has always had is that, regardless of what happens behind the scenes (a complicated marriage, the Covid scandal, urinating in public, the complaint for indecent exposure in a bar), he has always He appeared for Guardiola and City.
At the moment it does not appear. When a captain fails to feature, it can have wider ramifications for those under him than simply a right-back losing his man from time to time.