The City and England right-back has put pen to paper on a new two-year contract which will keep him at the Etihad until the summer of 2026.
Since joining City from Tottenham in the summer of 2017, Walker has become one of the most pivotal and influential members of the squad assembled by Pep Guardiola in what has proved the most successful period in the Club’s 129-year history.
In that time, the 33-year-old has won 15 major honours – including last season’s historic Treble - and chalked up almost 300 games in the process, establishing himself as one of the global game’s elite right-backs.
Reflecting on the factors behind committing to another two seasons at the Club, Walker cited the ability and hunger that unites Guardiola’s multi-talented squad – along with a collective desire to seek to achieve yet more history this term and beyond.
“It’s the team. I think that in this team there’s something special,” Walker declared when asked what had convinced him to extend his Etihad stay.
“Obviously, just coming back after an amazing high of last season in winning the Treble and finally getting the Champions League, which is the one trophy that we didn’t have as a group, I wanted to go and do it again.
“The lads have got that hunger again to go and achieve something really special again this season, fingers crossed.
“So, I wanted to be a part of it and I didn’t want to miss out on that.
“We’ve set the bar and each year it’s how do you get better, how do we get better? We seem to be doing that each year.
“We need to make sure that we’re there competing in the latest stages in all competitions and fighting for the silverware.
“Then, when you get to the later stages with the semi-finals, the finals, then you can start dreaming and having a little bit of hope.”
Across the timespan of his illustrious City stay, Walker has developed a close working rapport with Guardiola.
And Walker pointed to the example set by Guardiola in driving the exemplary standards that have helped establish City as the pre-eminent force in English football and beyond.
“I think it starts from the top with the manager and his hunger and drive to make sure that not just every Saturday when we turn up to play a football game or if it’s in the midweek but that in every training session… you need to be 100%,” Walker declared.
“I think that starts from him.
“And then it’s down to senior members of the team that need to, you know, try and make sure that the lads are probably going off what he believes in and to make sure that we’re drumming that into them, day in day out, that we need to keep the standards we’ve set.
“The standards that we have since I joined the club seven years ago.
“Obviously, we’ve not gone and won a Premier League in one of those seasons (2019/20), but I still thought that we did well. We were just unfortunate that it was a very good Liverpool team that ran away with it that season.
“So, we’ve set the bar. We’ve set the standards and we need to just keep working on that and keep getting better.”
