Kyle Walker-Peters will always have Barcelona. “Whenever people ask me about that, I talk about it as the best and worst experience I had,” says the Southampton full-back, who is in the England squad for the first time, preparing for the friendlies against Switzerland and Ivory Coast.
Walker-Peters was a 21-year-old Tottenham hopeful in December 2018 when he was thrust into the club’s final Champions League group game at the Camp Nou. It did not start well and he was at fault when Ousmane Dembélé opened the scoring in the seventh minute.
At which point Walker-Peters could have gone under. Instead, he dug deeper, using the setback as fuel and growing into the tie, playing his part as Spurs came back to draw 1-1 and advance to the knockout rounds. It is what he does, his career so far defined by an ability to respond in adversity.
Walker-Peters had begun the Under-20 World Cup in 2017 as an unused substitute but he finished it as the starting left-back in the England team that lifted the trophy. He could not establish himself as a Premier League player at Spurs; he has done so at Southampton. He was dropped by the then England Under-21 manager, Aidy Boothroyd, for the European Championship in March last year, despite being a regular for him previously. He is now in the senior squad.
“Barcelona was an opportunity for me to realise that you’re going to make mistakes but how well can you continue to play?” Walker-Peters says. “I remember Harry Kane and Danny Rose coming over to me after the mistake and saying: ‘You’re playing well, just keep going.’ That gave me so much confidence and I ended up playing a really good game.”
Young players will make errors. It is often a question of whether they will be allowed to make them again and it was all rather stop-start for Walker-Peters at Spurs; he made nine league starts across two and a half seasons.
“I was competing with two really top players in Kieran Trippier and Serge Aurier,” Walker-Peters says. “I had some really good performances but then I didn’t play again. I looked at it more as a process. I trusted in [the manager, Mauricio] Pochettino and I’ve learned a lot from it.”
Walker-Peters jumped at the opportunity to move to Southampton, initially on loan in January 2020, then on a £12m transfer in the summer of that year. He did not want to wait any longer for the chance of more minutes. He felt ready and he has started 57 league matches for Southampton.
“The most important thing for me was playing games, getting regular minutes when you can make mistakes and improve from them … that’s the only way you can get better,” the 24-year-old says and, if that sounds a little pointed, then the bit where he is asked about whether he has proved a point to Spurs certainly is.
“That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to go to Southampton because I knew they believed in me. I wanted to play regular football and maybe I’ve proved a few people wrong, which is always nice.”
Walker-Peters had been at Spurs since the age of 10. It was a wrench to leave and stepping down from a big-six club to step forward in the longer term was not without its risks. “Definitely,” Walker-Peters says. “But those are the risks you have to take in football if you believe in yourself. I wanted to be a Premier League footballer and to do that you have to play regular games.”
Walker-Peters was told on Saturday of his impending England call-up by his manager at Southampton, Ralph Hasenhüttl. The England manager, Gareth Southgate, had named the full-backs Trent Alexander-Arnold and Reece James in his original squad last Thursday but, by now, he knew that neither would be fit.
Walker-Peters had to cancel a holiday with friends to Milan. “He [Hasenhüttl] asked me where I was going and then he said: ‘No, you’re not. You’re going away with England!’”
Another conversation with Hasenhüttl arguably sowed the seeds for Walker-Peters’ elevation. “He said: ‘If you want to play for England, it’s important you show them you can play on the left as well,” Walker-Peters says. “He said: ‘Look at Trippier. At the Euros, he played left-back some of the time.’ I’d say versatility is definitely a quality that Gareth appreciates.”
Known primarily as a right-back, Walker-Peters has starred on the left for Southampton this season. That said, Southgate has used him on the right in training and it could be where he makes his debut.
“I feel just as comfortable in either position,” Walker-Peters says. “It was a bit of a surprise to people when I started playing left-back this season but I’ve been doing it for a long time, throughout the England youth ranks – including at the Under-20 World Cup.”
Walker-Peters’ mind goes back to the start of his football journey and to the people who have helped him, including his uncle, Phil Walker, a former Millwall and Charlton midfielder. “He played a big part in terms of sharing his experiences,” Walker-Peters says. “He would have been in the same situation of making mistakes and having to bounce back from them.”
At 14, Walker-Peters was invited to St George’s Park for the first time to play in a tournament. “I remember actually playing a game on the pitch that we’re now training on,” he says. The circularity of the narrative is a nice detail but, for Walker-Peters, it is all about what happens next.
