MANCHESTER CITY star Jack Grealish revealed he started to "feel the love" off manager Pep Guardiola during the second half of last season.
Grealish joined City in 2021 following a club record £100million move from Aston Villa but struggled to hit the ground running on his debut campaign with a mere three goals and three assists.
The England international, though, managed to turn things around last term when he returned from the 2022 World Cup.
That was when the forward started to register more goals as well as assists and thus Guardiola kept featuring him in his starting line-up more often.
The 28-year-old insists the City tactician never gave him a pep talk but quickly realised he was highly-rated simply by the opportunities he was getting.
Grealish told City's official podcast: "I'm a big confidence player, I want to feel loved.
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"I came back from the World Cup and my first game was against Leeds 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 [Haaland].'
"A week later, I was on the bench at Chelsea, as me and Riyad [Mahrez] came on at the same time and I got another assist for his goal. After that, I just seemed to get some more goal involvements.
"I felt I was playing well in myself, too, and the manager was picking me in the big games like for Arsenal in the FA Cup and Arsenal in the Premier League, Tottenham and so on.
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"I was feeling the love off Pep – not because he'd said so, but because he was playing me in all those big games.
"It's OK the manager going; 'You're so important to the team, Jack' – then not picking you.
"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."
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