Grealish opens up about adapting to Guardiola’s Man City style of play

Thanks to Riyad Mahrez’s 63rd-minute goal,

beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Thursday as they reduced their distance from Arsenal to five points.

, who provided the assist for Mahrez, acknowledges his struggles since arriving at the Etihad Stadium.

Grealish told

:

"When I came here, I'll be honest with you, it was so much more difficult than I thought.

"In my head I thought I was going to the team sitting top of the league and I was going to get so many goals and assists and obviously it isn't the case.

"A lot of teams tend to sit in against us and that wasn't the case at Villa.

"[Former Villa boss] Dean Smith would tell me to go and find the weak link in the defence, whether that was on the right, the middle or whether I wanted to hug the touchline, and at Villa, I always had an overlapping full-back.

"I came to City, having been at Villa my whole life, and I've never had to change [before]. I've always been used to that. I didn't realise how hard it is to adapt to a different team and manager."

Giving his verdict on Manchester City's fourth victory in a row against

, Grealish said:

"We've had games this season – against Everton and Brentford recently for example – where they've had a back five and they've sat in against us.

"Against a back four today it just felt so much more open, and we were desperate to come on."

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