Manchester City forward Jack Grealish has admitted that he is still settling at the club 18 months after making his £100m move from Aston Villa.
Grealish was a substitute on Thursday night and had to watch on as Chelsea had the better of the opening exchanges at Stamford Bridge. However, Pep Guardiola brought on Rico Lewis and Manuel Akanji at half time and both men immediately changed the mindset of the Blues.
However, it was not until the hour mark that Grealish was able to come on and make an impact of his own. Three minutes after being introduced, the 27-year-old played a wonderful pass across the box for Riyad Mahrez to tap in the winning goal of the game.
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That was only the third assist of the season and seventh since moving to the Etihad and post-match on Sky Sports, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink asked the Blues winger how he was settling in at City. Grealish responded: "I have said it a few times but it is so much different to what I was used to.
"Obviously I don't want to keep going back to Aston Villa but when I played for Dean Smith, he'd say to me: 'Go and find where you think the weak link is in the defence. If you wanna go right, in the middle, hug the touchline.'
"At Villa I would always have an overlapping full-back. I had been at Villa my whole life and never had to change, but I never realised how hard it is to adapt to another team and another manager.
"When I came here, I will be honest with you, it was so much more difficult than I thought. In my head I was thinking that going to the team that sits at the top of the league I will be getting so many goals but obviously it isn't the case.
"It is so much more difficult. A lot of teams do tend to sit in against us and that wasn't the case at Villa."
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