Manchester City have enjoyed a vast number of successes throughout Pep Guardiola’s reign at the club.
Since his arrival at the Etihad Stadium back in 2016, the Catalan has guided City to a plethora of trophies including six Premier League titles and their first Champions League.
During his time at the Manchester club, Guardiola has used over 90 players in total, many of which have played key roles in the club’s title wins.
Now in the midst of his ninth season with the Blues, the 53-year-old has shared a tongue-in-cheek comment about how he’s been using one of the players in his squad incorrectly.
Jeremy Doku of Manchester City (L) celebrates with Jack Grealish of Manchester City (C) and Ruben Dias of Manchester City (R)after scoring their 3r...
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Guardiola admits Jack Grealish ‘mistake’
In the Forest game, Guardiola deployed Jack Grealish in a deeper midfield position rather than in his usual left-wing role.
This has since led to the Catalan making this honest admission about the Englishman and his previous use of him in the team during his recent press conference ahead of City’s match against Crystal Palace.
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He said: “He has attributes to play there [in midfield] – maybe it was my mistake to play him as a winger. At Aston Villa with Dean [Smith], he started from the left-wing position and would go more inside.
“Here he has more of a fixed position, more in the places. But he can adapt perfectly in both positions. I know he likes playing in his position.
“We have a lot of needs right now and of course, with and without the ball, his impact on the game was really, really good.”
Micah Richards praised Grealish for his midfield performance against Forest
Prior to the Forest game, Shay Given claimed Grealish is “going to waste” at City by constantly being played on the left wing and not being able to impact games as much as he could.
After watching the £300k-a-week star perform in midfield against Forest, Micah Richards praised Grealish for what he offered City.
He said: “Doku played off the left and Bernardo Silva played on the right and they were rotating. But I think sometimes when Jack plays on the wings, he takes too many touches.
“I think his position is as a number 10. He grew into the game, his confidence was there and it just allowed him to take a bit more care in certain areas.
“Sometimes when he plays on the wing people get too close to him and he sort of goes, comes back, but today he was enjoying himself.
“When he’s playing midfield, he can go a lot deeper as well and play like a quarterback, so he was doing that and going forward as well. I enjoyed it.”
In Wednesday’s 3-0 win, Grealish played three key passes from midfield as well as making two tackles and putting in a crucial block to help City keep just their third league clean sheet of the campaign.
Having convinced Guardiola of his ability to play in a deeper and more central role, it’ll be interesting to see if the City manager continues to deploy Grealish in midfield – starting with their away match against Palace.
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