Burnley’s Kyle Walker says he will retire from club football ‘on my terms’

Kyle Walker says he intends to retire “on my terms”, but is not ready to hang up his boots just yet.

The 35-year-old called time on his international career last week, ending a stellar chapter with England.

But he has no plans to finish his club playing days just yet, insisting he wants to continue for “a few more years”, with a dream ending at boyhood club Sheffield United in his sights.

“I don’t know if I’ll continue playing for a few more years,” the Burnley right-back said on The Overlap podcast.

“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.

“I’m 36 in May, but I’m feeling good. It takes longer to recover, I can tell you that. One million per cent.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.”

Walker left Manchester City in the summer and has opened up about how he was left out of the starting line-up for the 2023 Champions League final, when boss Pep Guardiola changed his defensive shape.

The right-back revealed that despite being left out, he was asked to make a pre-match speech ahead of a match which would see City complete the treble.

“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 said.

“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.”