Kyle Walker aims sly dig at Tottenham over never having a ‘winning mentality’

Manchester City’s Kyle Walker has aimed a sly dig at his former club Tottenham Hotspur over their inability to adopt a ‘winning mentality’.

Since making the move north from the London club in the summer of 2017, Kyle Walker has won everything there is to win in England, and played an integral role in every single trophy success of Pep Guardiola’s reign so far.

Alongside four Premier League title triumphs in the last five seasons, the 32 year-old has also added four League Cup trophies, an FA Cup, and two Community Shields to an impressive trophy haul.

However, this relentless desire to win trophies and settle for nothing less than silverware is something that Kyle Walker believes was introduced to him upon joining Manchester City, and something that wasn’t prevalent at any of his former clubs.

Speaking to Sky Sports this week, Kyle Walker spoke at length about the importance of one game in his club career that changed his way of thinking as a top-level professional, and introduced a new-found drive for winning silverware every season.

“For me, a very important game was against Arsenal, when we won the first Carabao Cup (in 2018) because that was my first trophy,” said Walker.

“That was a big change in my way of thought of: ‘You know what, I can actually do that now. I can actually go to games and win finals’.”

In a sly dig towards his former clubs, including Tottenham Hotspur, Walker claims that prior to joining Manchester City, his previous employers never knew how to introduce a relentless winning mentality into their playing squad.

“I had been there and kind of just participated in them because teams that I played with or played for, we never knew really how to really have that winning mentality.”

Walker and his Manchester City teammates have the opportunity across the course of the coming days to further improve their chances at winning domestic silverware this season.

Chelsea are the opponents on Sunday afternoon, as Manchester City get their Emirates FA Cup campaign underway by taking on Graham Potter’s side in the third round proper of the competition.

Next Wednesday will also see Pep Guardiola’s side enter the business end of the Carabao Cup, as they travel to the south coast to take on Southampton at the quarter-final stage of the tournament, after beating Chelsea and Liverpool in the third and fourth round respectively.