Paul Dickov has suggested that Pep Guardiola has shown that Kyle Walker isn’t going to leave Manchester City this summer.
The Englishman has been heavily linked with a move to Bayern Munich in recent weeks, but the City boss said in his recent press conference ahead of the Citizens’ pre-season match against the German club that he will fight to keep hold of the 33-year-old.
In the build up to the Manchester club’s midweek friendly game against Thomas Tuchel’s side, one former City player had an interesting perspective about one aspect of the match that could be connected to Walker’s next step.
Dickov claims Guardiola has sent a message about Walker
Speaking in a live stream on the club’s official YouTube channel, Dickov had this to say about Walker and the fact that he was wearing the captain’s armband against Bayern.
He said: “Looking at him being captain today, he’s captain but with Ruben Dias and John Stones who have all captained the team before in there, possibly Ruben Dias before Kyle last season.
“I think Pep is sending out a statement to everybody else and rumours that he wasn’t going to be playing and now he is playing and now he’s captain.
“I might be completely wrong, I can’t imagine for one minute that if Pep knows he leaving that he’s going to play him and make him captain.”
The England international, who City paid £50m for back in 2017, led the treble winners out as captain before being replaced by Joao Cancelo for the second half of the game, which ultimately ended with City winning 2-1.
Throughout the first half in Japan, the veteran had 45 touches of the ball in total, winning three of the four duels he was involved in and making two tackles in total.
Having been part of the leadership group for a significant period of time, it’d be interesting to hear whether or not Guardiola chose to start and captain Walker on this occasion to reinforce how important he is for the squad in the hope that he decides to stay at the Etihad Stadium this summer.
