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.

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Manchester City star Jack Grealish started to feel the love off Pep Guardiola after the World Cup

Grealish knew Man City boss Guardiola rated him as he gave him more opportunities

But when the England international returned from the 2022 World Cup, he was able to turn things around.

The forward began to score more goals and provide more assists at that point, and Guardiola continued to start using him more frequently.

The 28-year-old is adamant that the City strategist never gave him a pep talk, but rather, he quickly realized he was highly-rated just by the opportunities he was receiving.

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Grealish told City’s official podcast: “I’m a big confidence player, I want to feel loved.

“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.

“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.”