‘He tells his version’ – Kyle Walker refutes Pochettino’s claim about his Spurs exit

Kyle Walker says he only decided to leave Tottenham Hotspur after Mauricio Pochettino made it clear that he was no longer part of his plans.

Kyle Walker swapped North London for Manchester

Walker spent eight seasons at Tottenham before swapping White Hart Lane for the Etihad Stadium back in 2017.

Man City paid £45m to sign the right-back from Spurs after the Lilywhites had finished above them in the 2016-17 season, which was Pep Guardiola’s first one in charge.

In his book, ‘Brave New World’, Pochettino suggested that he felt betrayed by Walker as the England international came to him before the end of the season when Spurs were going for the Premier League title to express his intention to leave.

The Argentine, who was playing Kieran Trippier at right-back over Walker in the latter part of the campaign, also suggested that the City’s star’s entourage were leaking stories to the press (Goal).

Kyle Walker disagrees with Pochettino’s account

Walker has now given his own version of the story, insisting that it was Pochettino who told him that he would not be the first choice at right-back had he remained at Spurs.

The 34-year-old said on his podcast You’ll Never Beat Kyle Walker: “I had a couple of good seasons towards the back end of it (at Tottenham).

“I kind of knew that [Mauricio] Pochettino’s mind was going in a different direction, that it was leaning more towards [Kieran] Trippier. But when I was playing, I was putting in the performances.

“So City spoke to my agent, seen that there was a little gap that they could probably persuade me to go. I went up to the manager. I know he’s written different stuff about me in his book, and he tells his version.

“But I went up to the manager and said, ‘I’m not in your plans, am I?’ And he said, no. He’s going to push more for Trippier next season. So I said, ‘Please can I go?’ And he said, ‘Well, I won’t stand in your way.’

“That was it. There was no hard blood. There’s no bad feelings or anything. He was just honest and I respect him so much for that. But yeah, he just put it to bed. He was just like, you know what? That’s the direction he’s going to go in. Obviously, he said, go and speak with Daniel [Levy].”

Walker confessed that the transfer to City was far from smooth, with the two clubs not seeing eye-to-eye on the price initially.

He added: “I had to go and have a conversation with the chairman and say, ‘OK, Mr. Chairman I want to leave. Please can I leave? They’re willing to pay the money.’ They thrashed the deal out. And that was it. It wasn’t as smooth sailing as I’d have liked it to have been.

“You know, there was a lot of this price, that price. But that’s probably a good businessman doing what he does and getting the most for the club, really. What probably people don’t understand is, I won’t say Daniel as such, but as a whole in chairmen, we are humans and we want to be happy.”

Spurs Web Opinion

We might never know what the complete truth is but letting go of Walker remains one of Pochettino’s biggest blunders at Spurs as Tripper regressed considerably over the next couple of seasons, with Poch eventually deciding to move him on in 2019.

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