London (AFP)
Spanish coach Pep Guardiola has called on winger Jack Grealish to ignore criticism and his poor statistics, after a slow start to his first season with English champions Manchester City.
The English international arrived at the Etihad Stadium at the beginning of the current season from Aston Villa for 100 million pounds ($134 million), in a record deal in the history of the English Premier League, but he has not yet shown the levels he made with his former team, content with three goals and the same assists in All competitions.
The 26-year-old admitted in an interview last December that the move was more difficult than he expected in terms of scoring goals and assists.
However, Guardiola stated that he was pleased with the return of his player.
On the sidelines of the match against his host, Peterborough, from the second level, “Championship” in the first round of the FA Cup on Tuesday, he said: “Maybe he listened a lot to what the world was saying, and this is wrong.” We always talk about statistics. Today’s players play for statistics, but that’s the biggest mistake they can make.
“The statistics only give a little bit of the information we want, but there are players who make the team play well who are not in the statistics.”
Grealish has missed City’s last four games with a leg problem and was on the bench during Saturday’s contentious 1-0 win over Everton in the league, but is expected to play against Petersburg.
Guardiola said his player will find his way into the net, stressing at the same time that this is not his main role in the team: we did not buy him to score 45 goals. He does not have this feature, but he does have another. He plays well, really. I wouldn’t tell you if he wasn’t playing well, but that’s not his condition.