Jack Grealish says the faith Pep Guardiola showed him by picking him for the biggest games during City’s Treble campaign helped him to find his very best form.
While Grealish admits it took time to adapt to Guardiola’s playing style and positional demands during his first season with the Club, he was one of the most consistent and best performers in 2022/23.
Speaking in the Official Man City Podcast series, ‘In Conversation With…’ – released at 17:00 (UK) on our official app and website – Grealish talks about his childhood, family and becoming a Treble winner with the Blues.
He also pinpoints the game where he felt everything started to click into place for him at City.
“With me, I’m a big confidence player – I want to feel loved,” said Grealish.
“I came back from the World Cup and my first game was against Leeds United and I should have scored at least two goals in the first half and at half-time, I was dwelling on that.
“But in the second half, I made two assists for Erling.
“A week later, I was on the bench at Chelsea and me and Riyad came on at the same time and I got another assist for his goal.
“After that, I just seemed to get more goal involvements.
“I felt I was playing well in myself, too and the manager was picking me in the big games like Arsenal in the FA Cup and Arsenal in the Premier League, Tottenham and so on.
“I was feeling the love off Pep, not because he said so, but just because he was playing me in all those big games.
“It’s OK the manager going ‘You’re so important to the team, Jack’ – and then not picking you on the Saturday – then you’d think, ‘yeah, you’re just saying that’.
“Pep didn’t say anything at all, but he picked me for the big games and that said everything.”
Grealish also pinpointed his favourite time as a City player so far, with the season run-in particularly special for him.
“Last season, April was the most important month for me,” he said,
“I remember looking on the Club app and there was a story about the games we had to play, and it was something like eight matches.
“Then I saw a post on our Twitter account asking ‘what would you want from this month?’ – about the matches we had coming up – and I thought: imagine winning all eight?
“Bear in mind we had Liverpool, Arsenal, Bayern Munich home and away – tough games – but I think I was the only player to start in all of them.
“I thought I might be rested for Sheffield United in the FA Cup, but I was picked again and I just felt a lot of love from Pep and that he trusted me.
“And I felt I gave that back, too.
“It made me feel wanted and I knew every week that I was going to play – the only way I could repay him was by performing.
“I felt that April period was the best time of my City career so far.”
Hear the full ‘In Conversation With Jack Grealish’ on the official Man City Podcast from 17:00 (UK) on Thursday 21 September – you will need a CITY+ subscription to access the interview.