Mueez Ajao
– Jack Grealish says adapting to Manchester City’s style of play has been “much more difficult” than he imagined.
– The £100m England playmaker underlined the champions’ strength in depth by coming off the bench to create their winning goal at Chelsea.
– City were not at their best at Stamford Bridge but Grealish produced the moment of incisiveness they needed with a slide-rule pass across the face of the six-yard box to hand fellow substitute Riyad Mahrez a tap-in.
Also Read: Impact subs Grealish and Mahrez seals win for City at Stamford Bridge
– Grealish’s third Premier League assist of the campaign matched his tally from the entirety of last season, but the ex-Aston Villa star still had more goal involvements (16 – six goals, 10 assists) in his final season in the Midlands than he has had in almost 18 months with City (10 – four goals, six assists).
– “When I came here, I’ll be honest with you, it was so much more difficult than I thought,” Grealish, 27, told Sky Sports after City’s 1-0 win moved them to within five points of leaders Arsenal.
– “In my head I thought I was going to the team sitting top of the league and I was going to get so many goals and assists and obviously it isn’t the case. A lot of teams tend to sit in against us and that wasn’t the case at Villa.”
– Grealish added: “[Ex-Aston Villa manager] Dean Smith would tell me to go and find the weak link in the defence, whether that was on the right, the middle or whether I wanted to hug the touchline – and at Villa, I always had an overlapping full-back.
– “I came into City, having been at Villa my whole life, and I’ve never had to change. I’ve always been used to that. I didn’t realise how hard it is to adapt to a different team and manager.”
– Grealish and Mahrez had each only been on the pitch for three minutes and 43 seconds before they combined for the crucial goal that cut league leaders Arsenal’s advantage.
– “We’ve had games this season – Everton and Brentford recently for example – where they’ve had a back five and they’ve sat in against us,” Grealish added.
– “Against a back four today it just felt so much more open and we were saying we were desperate to come on.”
