* KYLE WALKER HAS HAD AN IMPRESSIVE START TO THE SEASON WITH MANCHESTER CITY  * THE DEFENDER FORCED HIS WAY BACK INTO THE ENGLAND SQUAD WITH HIS PERFORMANCES  * THE FULL BACK HAD BEEN LEFT

OUT ON THREE OCCASIONS BY MANAGER GARETH SOUTHGATE  * WALKER IS BACK TO HIS BEST AS CITY PREPARE TO WELCOME CHAMPIONS LIVERPOOL  By OLIVER HOLT FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY Published: 17:30 EDT, 7

November 2020 | Updated: 06:41 EDT, 8 November 2020 There are times when Kyle Walker wishes that his kids had the same kind of carefree upbringing he and his friends enjoyed when he was

growing up on the Lansdowne Estate in Sharrow, a suburb of Sheffield not far from Bramall Lane.  Knocking on each other's doors, going out to kick a ball around, playing on 'The

they will study for a law degree. It was different for him.   'In my childhood, I had to do football,' he says. 'Without football, I couldn't have given my mum and dad

what I've given them.' His mum moved the family off the estate when Walker was 15. He resented it to begin with. The friends he had there were the only friends he knew. But his mum

had started to worry about his safety.  He noticed she was always asking him to make sure he had his mobile phone with him so he could call her. She did not want anything to interfere with

his football dream so they moved away.  He knows the debt he owes the game. It is part of the reason why, when he scored for Manchester City against Sheffield United last Saturday, he did

not celebrate.  It was his 100th appearance for City and it was the winner and he does not score that many goals but he had been on Sheffield's books from the age of seven until he was

18. They had provided the framework of his life and he wanted to show he remembered. 'I was never going to celebrate,' Walker says. 'I scored against Sheffield United in my

first game for Aston Villa when I played there and I was just thinking 'Why me?' It was a pea roller with my left foot. Some players like to score against their old club but

I'd rather not because I like to show the respect. 'When I walked out for City at Bramall Lane last week, it didn't feel the same not being able to hear the Greasy Chip Butty

song. I miss the fans.' It is because he loves the game so much that he felt it so keenly when his future in it came into question this year. Like so many, he struggled with the

loneliness brought on by coronavirus restrictions.  When he broke lockdown rules in the spring, some suggested that Gareth Southgate, who had not named him in a squad for eight months, was

so appalled that he would never pick him for England again. Bad headlines followed him around. He was part of a City team that fell to a shock defeat by Lyon in the quarter-finals of the

Champions League in Lisbon and then, when Southgate relented and brought him back into the international fold for a Nations League qualifier against Iceland in Reykjavik at the beginning of

September, Walker was sent off 70 minutes into England's last-gasp 1-0 win for a second yellow card after a late tackle. Straight after the match, he gave an emotional interview that

suggested to many he feared the 49th cap he had just earned might be his last. Some said it was time to hand over the baton to Trent Alexander-Arnold, Kieran Trippier and Reece James and

that Walker was yesterday's man. He took the criticism on the chin. He had little choice. When City lost 5-2 at home to Leicester near the start of the new season, Walker was handed

more of the blame. But just when some thought he was sinking, he started to swim. His form returned. His performances recovered their former authority. His pace, always frightening, seemed

to redouble.  Once he served his suspension, Southgate put him back in the England team. He scored the winner against Sheffield United. Many made him their man of the match in City's

comfortable Champions League victory over Olympiacos last week. His performances have been so good he was nominated as one of the candidates for Premier League player of the month for

October on Friday. Troy Deeney, the Watford striker, who is not afraid of throwing brickbats, said he still thought Walker was one of the best right backs in the world. Others hailed him as

Pep Guardiola's Mr Reliable. Guardiola lavished praise on his contribution to the ethos of the team, too. Maybe now that he is 30, he is a bit old for this but, as City go into their

eagerly awaited match with Liverpool on Sunday, Walker is English football's Comeback Kid. 'England's game with Iceland and what happened after it was important for me,'

says Walker. 'I'd been left out of the squad for more than a year. The first time it happens, you think, 'No problem, maybe I'll benefit from the rest' and that sort

of stuff. 'I had played for England since I was 21. As soon as the squad's announced, you get used to being in it. You are saying bye to the kids and spending a lot of time away

in a hotel.  'Gareth and Steve [Holland] have made it a more enjoyable place to go and play football and it should be because you are representing your country, so it was still hard to

miss out. 'The second time I was left out, I kind of expected to be in that one so it was a bit of a jolt. And then when it happened a third time, I thought, 'Maybe I'm just

not his cup of tea any more'.  'But before the lockdown happened, the manager came over to the house and spoke to me and said: 'Listen Kyle, I have been very happy with your

performances and I want you back in the team for the next camp'. 'I told him I had probably taken it for granted a bit because I had been in the team for so long. Much as I hate to

admit it, I probably needed to be dropped to realise the importance of playing for England. Not that I lost it. But I just took it for granted. I thought I'd be in the squad. 

'So, come the Iceland game, it was difficult. I wanted to prove that, even though I'm 30 years old, I still had a lot to offer. I think he knows what I can do as a footballer but I

felt like I was that eager to show him that I needed to stay in the squad, I made decisions on the pitch that I don't normally make. 'I don't make rash challenges. Before

that, I had only been sent off once in my career and that was for a shoulder-to-shoulder on Dominic Calvert-Lewin against Everton, which was my first game at the Etihad for Manchester City.

My whole Tottenham career, I never got sent off. It is not in my nature to make rash challenges. 'I thought I could get that ball against Iceland. Maybe I wasn't quite sharp enough

coming back off holiday, maybe I lost that half a second and just half a second and it's a red. I did that interview and I was running on emotions. I thought I needed to address the

public and the media and hold my hands up and say it was my fault. 'I went too negative with how I was feeling. At that moment, I felt it might be the end of my England career. I had my

chance and I had got sent off in a qualifier. I thought, 'Someone, somewhere upstairs doesn't want me in that England team'. That's what I was thinking. 'When I got

back to the hotel, I went to see the manager privately and apologised. I was the senior member of the side and I told him I knew I couldn't be making decisions like that that could

cost the team in big matches. 'He agreed with me about that but he said he had heard my interview and he said: 'It's not over. You've made a mistake and people make

mistakes but if you continue to perform at the level you're performing at, you will be in my squads'. 'That made me take a big breath of relief and think he wasn't that

mad at me and he was saying it wasn't over. That gave me the reassurance to go and perform how I have done recently. I'm pleased with the way I have played since then. I'm

pleased with the way I've played in this new season.'  After an uneven start to the season, it feels as if City, like Walker, are starting to accelerate again as they prepare to

welcome the champions. Liverpool humbled them — and every other side — last season as they ran away with the title but Walker knows how difficult it is for a team to win successive

championships, as City did in 2017-18 and 2018-19. City were the first side to win back-to-back titles for more than a decade but, even though Liverpool fell to a startling 7-2 defeat by

Aston Villa earlier in the season and have conceded more goals than anyone else in the division other than West Brom, they moved to the top of the table with their victory over West Ham last

Saturday. Walker is relishing the challenge. 'Liverpool are the team that own the Premier League title,' he says. 'They are the team that have got the red ribbons on it and

they wear the gold lion on the sleeve. They rightfully have that. We were the first team to retain the title for a decade and we know that it's hard, once you've won it, to go

again. But they seem up for the challenge. 'Liverpool were deserved winners last year. Watching them, you just knew they were going to win every game. It was just a question of how many

and who was going to score, which was frustrating when you were trying to catch them, I can assure you of that. You have to take your hat off and give credit where it is due.

'Liverpool are a fantastic team with good players in good areas but do I feel they're unbeatable? No. We proved that last season when they came to the Etihad after the lockdown and

we played them off the park, I believe.  'It's going to be a massive game on Sunday. It's bragging rights, to send a marker out there to the other teams: we are here now and

we mean business.' Walker falls into a rhapsody when he talks about Guardiola. He loves the challenge of adapting to his tactical instructions. He says there were times in his first two

seasons at City when he felt he could have played blindfolded because he was so sure where his team-mates would be at any given moment.  'At Spurs, he says, he used his pace to attack.

At City, he has concentrated more on using his speed to complement his defensive work. He laughs when he remembers the time Guardiola even asked him for advice last season, before a game

against Sheffield United. 'Pep came up to me and said: 'Is it true that their centre-backs overlap their full-backs?' says Walker. 'And I said 'Yeah, it's

true' and he said: 'I've never seen it in my life'.' After all the vicissitudes of the past few months, the scrutiny has lifted and the joy of the game has taken

over again. As Walker talks, he thinks back to how it all began for him.  He was staying over at a friend's house when he was six years old and they were all supposed to be going to a

training session at a school the next morning but there was no room in the car for Kyle. He said goodbye to his friends the next morning, said he would see them later on The Flats and walked

home. Twenty minutes later, his friend knocked on his door and said there was a place in the car after all. Walker pulled on his kit and hopped in the car to a school playground in

Abbeydale a few miles away. There was a Sheffield United scout there.  'That's how I got spotted,' Walker says, grinning. 'And the rest is history.'