SHAUN Wright-Phillips claims he is back to his best because he quit Chelsea.
Wright-Phillips returns to Stamford Bridge tomorrow transformed from the player so scandalously underused by Chelsea and says he had to leave to restart his career.
The winger is dazzling again under Mark Hughes, scoring his eighth goal of the season against Aalborg on Thursday and a regular with England.
He again looks like the talent Chelsea paid £21million for in 2005 and puts his rebirth down to playing regularly. Wright-Phillips always had the ability and is happy to be working again with a boss who believes in him.
“Playing regularly at City is the key to everything,” he said. “With the players I’m playing with, and the culture of the manager, everything else takes care of itself.
“People ask me if this is the best I’ve played. It could be, but I can still improve.
“It’s just a matter of getting games and this is my first year back playing consistently.
“I just thought I’m coming back home to City and I have to get back to where I started. That’s what I’m trying to do.
“I’m happy to be back here, but I was happy at Chelsea too. Chelsea’s in the past. I’m someone who looks forward. I don’t know whether Chelsea think it was a mistake to let me go. I’m just concentrating on what I do with City.”
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Wright-Phillips, 27, refuses to see his three years at Chelsea as wasted and insists he did develop as a player.
He claims he improved by training every day with world-class talents like Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack and Michael Essien, even if he played with them on a less frequent basis.
“I’ve no regrets about going to Chelsea,” he said. “It made me a better player and now I want to improve again.
“Even though I didn’t play all the time, I was still learning because when you’re training with players like that, you’re learning.
“I still speak to the Chelsea lads and when I go down to see some of my family, I try to see some of them. The whole experience made me appreciate life. I was given a chance, I took the chance and I learned a lot. I don’t think it is weird going back. I just look at it as our next game and think we need to get something out of the game.”
Swp’s renaissance has sparked City’s best form of their erratic season and he claims they can give Chelsea “the game of their lives”.
City are one of the best counter-attacking sides in the top flight and Wright-Phillips feels this game, where the onus is on Chelsea, could be made for them.
“We know how good Chelsea are,” he said. “We have to give them the game of their lives and see what happens. When we counter attack, we’re up there with some of the best. We’re playing with a lot of movement and Stephen Ireland, Robinho and Elano can all break quickly.
“It’s something we’ve done over the last four or five games and we have to maintain it now.”
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