Manchester City fell to a troubling 4-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur in their first match back from the November international break.
City found themselves 2-0 down after 20 minutes with James Maddison bagging both of them.
Seven minutes into the second half, Pedro Porro scored the third as Pep Guardiola’s side still attempted to mount a comeback.
However, Brennan Johnson scored the fourth and final goal of the match for Ange Postecoglou’s side to rub salt in the wounds for the champions at the Etihad Stadium.
Once this goal went in, a pundit and former Premier League star made an observation about what he saw from one particular City player on the night which hasn’t painted him in a positive light.
Gary Neville exposes ‘struggling’ Kyle Walker after key moment in Man City vs Tottenham
After seeing Kyle Walker get beat in a footrace by Timo Werner in the build-up to Tottenham’s fourth goal, Gary Neville gave this reaction during his TV commentary on Sky Sports.
MORE MAN CITY STORIES
He said: “Goodness. Gracious. Me. You don’t see that very often, but we’ve seen it a few times in the last couple of weeks.
“Vinicius Junior, [Kylian] Mbappe, he’s handled them all, Walker, but he’s struggling at this moment in time.”
Walker has already been beaten in a race this season
During City’s 3-2 win over Fulham earlier in the season, Walker was outpaced and overpowered by Adama Traore which led to the Spaniard getting into a one-v-one situation with Ederson and getting a shot away.
This then led to Walker explaining how Traore outpaced him and what his reaction was to the incident, saying this on the subject.
He said: “I just base myself on that I’m quick, I thought that I had him, it’s not an excuse, he beat me fair and square, but I’m going to remember it.
“My arm should have come across but, you know, when I start running backwards [towards goal], nine times out of 10 people just stop, but he obviously backs himself so much, just like I do, he’s thought, “I can actually catch this”.
“And next minute he’s actually in front of me and I’ve tried to give him the arm to try to claw a little bit back, he’s that strong. From what I’ve seen he could be up there with me.”
In the Spurs game, the 34-year-old may have been beaten by a fresh-legged Werner right at the end of the game, but the fact that it led to a goal and isn’t the first time it’s happened this season makes it easy to see why Neville has made this observation about the City captain.
Taking all of that on board, it’s hard not to see more questions being raised about Walker, presumably about if he is now past his peak in terms of being a top physical athlete and a top defender.