JACK GREALISH has spoken out on dealing with criticism from TV pundits.
The 27-year-old has been superb for Manchester City this season after a tough first campaign following his £100million move from Aston Villa.
He has scored five goals and provided 11 assists in all competitions and enjoyed an extended run in the side this term.
Graeme Souness, who recently retired from punditry with Sky Sports, previously said last September Grealish is “a good player, not a great player” who takes too many touches of the ball.
City and England star Grealish hit back at the time by saying: “I don’t know what his problem is with me. He always says stuff about me.”
And now, speaking to the Daily Mail, Grealish has spoken again on what it’s like handling criticism from pundits.
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Referencing Souness, he said: “The way some of the TV pundits talk I can’t actually catch my breath sometimes. It’s as if they never played bad themselves.
“Graeme was an unbelievable player. But he used to say I held on to the ball too long.
“I was like, ‘Mate, I play for Aston Villa’. A lot of the time we didn’t have the ball so when we did the manager told me to keep it.
“It’s the same here. Everyone sees Pep [Guardiola] as a tiki-taka manager, but before the Bayern Munich game away in the Champions League he said, ‘You know what having balls is? It’s about being the one to keep the ball, to calm the game down’.
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“So you do that and you get criticised. It’s tricky.”
Grealish went on to say there was less pressure to play well when he was playing for boyhood club Aston Villa.
At the time he was not a £100m player, and he was not watched on TV by as many people as he is now.
Grealish continued: “When I was at Villa nobody had paid any money for me so it didn’t matter if I played bad.
“Also, 90 per cent of the games were not live on TV so people wouldn’t notice anyway.”
And Grealish admitted the way he has played affects whether or not he will listen to what pundits have said about him.
He revealed: “It is different now but I will be honest here — if I have played well I go back home and watch everything and listen to the commentary and what they say afterwards.
“If I play s***, I will not listen to a word they say.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
