Kyle Walker speaks out on his club future after retiring from international football before World Cup

Kyle Walker has declared his intention to retire from professional football “on my terms”, although the Burnley defender is not yet ready to hang up his boots.

The 35-year-old recently called time on his international career with England last week just three months before the World Cup, but remains committed to his club playing days for “a few more years”, with a heartfelt ambition to finish at his boyhood club, Sheffield United.

Speaking on The Overlap podcast, the right-back shared his perspective on the twilight of his career.

“I don’t know if I’ll continue playing for a few more years,” he admitted. “I feel once that time in my head comes where I’m done, I’d have to be true to myself. Leave the game before the game leaves you.”

Despite approaching his 36th birthday in May, Walker insists he feels good, though acknowledges the physical demands.

“It takes longer to recover, I can tell you that. One million per cent,” he said. “And probably now I’m probably doing a lot more defending than I’ve ever done in my career, but I feel good. It’s more for me upstairs and you fight your little battles in your head if you can keep doing it.”

Walker emphasised his desire to control his own narrative.

“I don’t want to tarnish what I’ve done but I also have a level of respect for myself that I’ll do it on my terms,” he explained.

“I’m not letting outside noise reflect what I want to do as a footballer because it’s a short career and people don’t understand that.”

Football has been his life since childhood.

“It’s been (ingrained) in us from the age of six when I started. I never played grassroots. I played Sheffield United and that was it. Suddenly, if you take that away from me, what am I going to do? What do I go into?

“I’ve not done anything else in my whole entire life except football, so it’s a big part of me and to let it go, it’s hard. But sometimes you have to let it go when you’re not good enough anymore.”

His dream remains clear: “I’d like to keep playing for another few years. It’s always been a dream to play for Sheffield United again. To start there at six years old and then leaving at 19 – I spent so many incredible years there. I hope to play for them again. I don’t know when that will be. I don’t know if they will want me.”

The defender also reflected on being omitted from the starting line-up for the 2023 Champions League final, a match that saw Manchester City complete their historic treble.

Manager Pep Guardiola explained his decision to Walker, who was then asked to deliver a pre-match speech to his teammates.

“Pep Guardiola explained to me why he left me out of the Champions League final. He pulled me aside and told me that I wasn’t playing because he wanted to go with the back four,” Walker recalled.

“So I understood it, but he asked me to do the speech as well. I had to take a speech in the dressing room before.

“The reason why he wanted me to make the speech is a thing that probably he’s just made up in his head that he thinks is going to motivate the lads. I don’t know. What did I say… ‘My dream is in your hands now’. I was nervous, but it’s something that I’ve dreamed of.”