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Pep Guardiola says he is not asking his current choice of right-backs to play like Kyle Walker.
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Walker left City in the summer after a highly successful eight seasons at the Etihad Stadium.
Over that time, he played 319 times and won 18 major honours as he established himself as one of the best right-backs in Premier League history.
City v Burnley | Match preview
Abdukodir Khusanov, Rico Lewis and Matheus Nunes have all featured in that position in the early weeks of the new campaign.
Walker will return to City this weekend as his new side Burnley visit for a 15:00 kick-off in the Premier League on Saturday.
Asked in his pre-match press conference whether he expects his current players to play in the same way Walker did, Guardiola was unequivocal in his response.
“No,” he began.
“Kyle has his ability and skills, the others have theirs.
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“I would love to have all the old players who help us a lot. It happens. I want to leave because I don’t want to be here what can we do? We have other players who have to do their one careers.
“Do your job with your skills what you need to do in your career. Live your life like a pro, play one or three a week the clubs its what you have to do. Matheus [Nunes], Khusa[nov], Rico [Lewis] they need their own careers here.
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With Walker holding down that position for much of Guardiola’s spell in charge at City, the boss admitted it’s difficult to find an alternative to a player he relied upon for so long.
“Difficult of course. He played eight, nine years at City and 55 or 60 games per season.
“We won the titles but not just Kyle, it is so difficult to replace but it’s what the club needs to do.”
City v Burnley app coverage
Our official app allows you to follow all of the action from the Etihad in one place.
Minute-by-minute text updates will begin in our Matchday Centre two hours before kick-off, while our Matchday Live show will begin at around 13:45 (UK).
Given it’s the release of the latest EA FC game this weekend, FG and Shellzz will be the guests on the latest Matchday Live show alongside presenter Cel Spellman, offering their insight before and after the action.
During the game you can also listen to live audio commentary from Alistair Mann and Nicky Weaver while our text commentary continues.
Make sure to have push notifications turned on as well, so you can be alerted to key moments in the action, including goals, red cards and the team news.
We’ll have a quick-hit 2-minute highlights package available at 19:00 (UK), while you can sign-in to watch a free 8-minute edit at midnight. On CITY+ meanwhile, there’ll be our popular full-match replay as well as our new extended highlights offering which features the best 20 minutes of action from the game. Both are also available at midnight.
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