At various points in and around the summer transfer window last year, Manchester City defender Kyle Walker was linked with a move to Bayern Munich, but a move never actually materialized.
In the defensive department, Thomas Tuchel wound up signing Kim Min-jae from SSC Napoli last summer and then Eric Dier from Tottenham and Sacha Boey from Galatasaray during the January transfer window. The club had to do their part to replace Lucas Hernandez and Benjamin Pavard after the pair of defenders left the club last summer.
Reports at the time had suggested that Walker was ready to take on a new challenge outside of England and the Premier League and that he was excited at the prospect of working under Tuchel. He had already won everything there is to win with City under Pep Guardiola and would have been able to linkup with England teammate and former Premier League competitor Harry Kane.
Instead, however, Walker decided to stay with City and ultimately went on the win his four straight Premier League title with the club just one season after securing a historic treble. In a recent interview, Walker explained that most of his reasons for entertaining the thought of moving to Bayern were personal and were not really footballing decisions.
“It would have been a lot different because I’d have been at a different club. That was a moment in my personal life that I felt I wanted to move away from England, and it was nothing to do with footballing reasons. It was something personal to me, where I thought that taking a break from England might have been right for me. But first and foremost, I have to think about football. It’s what I love doing and I felt that come the end of it I would be a lot happier at Manchester City than I would at Bayern Munich,” Walker explained (The Mirror).
From a footballing standpoint, the right-back certainly made the right decision regardless of what personal matters had him thinking about a potential move abroad last summer. Bayern had their first season without a piece of silverware since 2011 and City won out in the Premier League, despite Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal side over-performing and pushing City to the final day of the season.
The close relationship the defender has developed with Guardiola is also a big part of the reason why he ultimately decided to stay with City last summer and not try a new challenge with Bayern. “Me and Pep have a great relationship. There’s not many of us that can say we’ve been here since almost the start of his reign. was playing at Tottenham for the first year, but we’re still here together after all the ups and downs and we have to have a good relationship because I’m club captain and the middle person between the lads and the manager,” he explained.