Kyle Walker opens up on his new Man City role and stance on England retirement

"I'm not letting someone else retire me," Kyle Walker says defiantly in the Houston Dynamos dressing room. "I'm going to let someone have a decision to make where you're going to have to pick me."

Just before Manchester City are about to head out to train ahead of their first pre-season friendly in Houston, Walker sat down with reporters for a chat about his plans for club and country. When the time is up, it's clear that Walker, 32, has no plans of giving up his status as first-choice right-back for City and England any time soon.

The first question sets the tone for the conversation — 'do you get the respect you deserve?' "I feel in certain parts of the country I do, it's about opinions," he says diplomatically.

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"That's why we all like football, just because your opinion could be different to mine. You look at Trent [Alexander-Arnold], Joao [Cancelo], Reece James. We're blessed in this league to have the array of fullbacks that we do. I just try to go out and do the job, the things I'm good at. My main objective is stopping goals and making sure we don't concede goals and get a clean sheet."

Those three full-backs Walker lists are players that he has successfully seen off challenges from for his place in the last year or so, and he credits them with making him a better player.

He continues: "Having the competition I had at England and also here at Man City has made me a better player, made me having to adapt my game in a certain way and probably study the game a little bit more. Before, we could all play football in the Premier League, but it's the 10 per cent that makes a difference between being a good Premier