- Kyle Walker honours Pep Guardiola
- Shares gruelling training sessions under Pep
- Guardiola’s last game with Manchester City
Former Manchester City captain Kyle Walker has lifted the lid on how Pep Guardiola’s intense, gruelling early seasons completely reshaped him as a player.
Walker departed Manchester City last summer after a solid seven-and-a-half-year stay at the Etihad Stadium under the Spaniard. During his phenomenal run under Pep, the English full-back racked up six Premier League titles, four League Cups, two FA Cups, and the club’s only UEFA Champions League in 2023.
His current reality looks drastically different after joining Burnley as their star right-back, experiencing the heartbreak of relegation to the Championship this season. Meanwhile, his former side was locked in a breathless, down-to-the-wire title fight with Arsenal.
Alas, the Sky Blues couldn’t quite deliver the Premier League trophy in what has now been confirmed as Guardiola’s final season in Manchester. Yet, as Walker perfectly explains, missing out on one final piece of silverware does absolutely nothing to shatter Pep’s decade-long legacy of total dominance at the club.
How Pep Guardiola shaped Kyle Walker as a player
The speculations had been going on since January. While Pep did try to brush off the rumours, he couldn’t really push aside the inevitable. Like he said in the farewell message, “It’s the right time.”
And now, in a candid sit-down podcast with talkSPORT, Walker looked back at the time when Guardiola came in and the shift he brought.
🤯 "It was mental!"
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) May 22, 2026
📅 "It took me two seasons to get used to how he wanted me to play."
Kyle Walker goes in depth about Pep Guardiola's training methods and how intense it was at Manchester City pic.twitter.com/90O2YC8sNG
Walker revealed it took him two seasons to get used to the changes, as he added: “It was mental. I reckon two seasons before I fully got what he wanted from the game of football. And I think he always used to bring me into his office, show me different clips, and everything like that.
“And he used to say Mascherano was the same at Barcelona, where he just didn’t get it. He just didn’t get it. And I was probably one of them. I just didn’t get it. But what I was fortunate with is that I played in the Premier League for a number of seasons. So I knew the teams that we were playing against… but in training, I was a disaster. A disaster.”
Walker continued to explain why he struggled in the training sessions: “I just couldn’t get the pictures in my head of where the free man was. It just wouldn’t sit in. And obviously, my physicality would then get me through the training sessions: run around, smash a few people.
“I kind of relied on my pace a lot. And then the games became natural. But the training sessions, when he did certain practices, I was like, ‘Oh, not this again. Not this again,’ because I just struggled. He told me I struggled in the training sessions. On certain ones. I wasn’t completely awful in them.”
Walker explained that the biggest adjustment under Guardiola was moving away from the more physical and traditional training methods he had experienced earlier in his career under Harry Redknapp and Mauricio Pochettino.
He said sessions back then were more straightforward, often involving simple 7v7 drills with a floater acting as the spare man. Under Guardiola, however, training became far more position-based, with every player expected to hold specific spaces and understand the structure in possession.
Although Walker did admit that some players picked things up much quicker. “But then you look at Gundo or Bernardo Silva. It was like a walk in the park for them. But my theory was that they were playing in the middle, so they always had the outside pass. That was my theory. I was like boxed in a corner. Me and Danilo were like boxed in a corner.
“But I feel that I wouldn’t be the player that I am today, I wouldn’t know the game of football, look at the game of football, if it wasn’t for him.”
Guardiola leaves a legacy that would be hard to replicate
No doubt, Guardiola’s successor has his work cut out. Enzo Maresca is reportedly set to take the reins, but replacing Guardiola was never going to be a simple plug-and-play move.
Back in 2013, the football world reacted with relief when Sir Alex Ferguson stepped away from Manchester United after 38 trophies in 27 years. Now, with City confirming Guardiola’s departure, there is a similar feeling around the league.
Praise for anything connected to City understandably comes with hesitation while the 115 alleged financial charges still linger, but Guardiola’s influence on English football, and his relentless pursuit of silverware, cannot be ignored.
10 years. 20 trophies. Including six Premier League titles and the club’s first-ever Champions League as part of the 2022-23 treble. He also delivered a record 100-point Premier League campaign in 2017-18, four consecutive Carabao Cups between 2018 and 2021, and a historic fourth straight league title in 2024.
Man City will bid farewell to Guardiola at the Etihad on the final day
The Catalan will take charge of his final match as Manchester City manager against Aston Villa on Sunday, May 24, bringing the curtain down on an iconic decade in Manchester.
Speaking in his final pre-match press conference, Guardiola admitted he was proud to receive congratulatory messages from former rivals and past players.
“I know I had incredible success in my time as a manager and it’s nice to be there,” he said. There is no doubt the Etihad will be packed for the farewell. The title race is already over, but Sunday is about more than just the result.
Guardiola’s last dance alongside John Stones, and maybe it’s curtains on Bernardo Silva’s time here as well. A lot is changing in Manchester. Brace for a massive transition.
