Pep Guardiola opened up about the 'problem' he has with Jack Grealish amid the club struggles.
The 26-year-old has joined The Citizens in the summer with a fee of £100million.
Guardiola has advised Grealish to ignore the critics and completely focus on his best football, but the player has claimed that adapting to the Catalan's style has taken way longer than expected.
"Maybe he listened too much to what the people say and it’s wrong." said the City manager at a press conference via Birmingham Live.
"Always we talk about the statistics. Players today play for the statistics, but this is the biggest mistake they can do.
"Statistics are just a bit of information that we have, but there are players that make the team play good and are not in the statistics. Players say, 'How many goals (did) I score or how many assists'… this is the problem.
"These statistics never existed before. It’s how you play if you perform to your maximum, to your best, help your team-mates to make the process defensively and offensively better, that is enough. Thanks to that we are going to win."
"He plays quite similar to Aston Villa in terms of ball contact," said Guardiola at a press conference.
"He had the chances against Crystal Palace in 20 minutes to score three goals. It didn’t happen, but it’s going to happen.
"We didn’t buy him to score 45 goals. He doesn’t have that quality but he has another one.
"He’s playing good, really. I wouldn’t tell you if he’s not playing good, but that’s not the case."
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