Becoming England's first £100million footballer might be expected to bring a bit of extra pressure, but Jack Grealish has shrugged off his price tag and is ready to embrace his place in the record books.
Grealish is the first domestic player to move for that sum and becomes the most expensive Premier League signing in history, but the 25-year-old sees only positives when it comes to how much Manchester City parted with to sign him from Aston Villa.
The attacking midfielder has long been a target for Pep Guardiola and the fact City broke their transfer record by £37million to sign Grealish shows the affection that the manager has for his talents.
Plenty of players have found the baggage of a hefty transfer fee to heavy to handle in recent years, but Grealish is actually pleased with his own place in history and insists he's ready to repay the club and Guardiola for that show of faith.
"No it don’t put no pressure on me whatsoever. I take that as a compliment. I actually like it, I think it is a good tag to have," he said.
"I think when you see a club paying that much for a player it means they trust and value you highly and see so much potential there to work with. I just see it as a good thing. Now I just hope I can repay this whole football club by winning as many titles as possible and winning that trophy we all want."
City could yet break that £100million barrier again to sign Harry Kane this summer, but for now Grealish is top of the tree when it comes to Premier League transfers and he admits that reality is yet to really hit home after completing his move from the Midlands last week.
"It probably hasn’t sunk in yet actually. It means so much to me that the club were willing to spend that much money on me," he said.
"If anything it just fills me with confidence. I don’t think there’s any pressure on that price tag at all. It just shows how much the club and the manager value me and that only gives me confidence going forward."
"It’s been a crazy few days, something I’ve never experienced before. I’ve been at Aston Villa my whole life, it’s been different. Going into a new changing room, I've not done that before, I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Everyone at the club, backroom staff to players, have made me and my family feel so welcome.
"It was so tough [to leave Villa], I think everyone knows I reported back for pre-season as I was meant to, I went back for a few days, it was difficult, in the back of my head I knew I might be going.
"I did a bit on my own, everyone saw how Messi was yesterday, that’s the exact way I felt, before I left at the hotel I spoke to the team and the staff and the players and I teared up a little bit myself."
