Hughes: Wright-Phillips was no gamble

12 April 2012

Manchester City manager Mark Hughes is expecting big things from Shaun Wright-Phillips as he attempts to rebuild his career on familiar territory.

The 26-year-old England international marked his return to his first club with a double at Sunderland as City cruised to a deserved 3-0 victory.

Wright-Phillips struggled to command a regular place at Chelsea following his £21million move to Stamford Bridge in July 2005. But when asked if the player feels he has something to prove following his £9million return to Eastlands last week, Hughes said: "Possibly. Maybe when you are not playing week in, week out, you maybe have doubts about your own ability."

He added: "Probably what has happened today (Sunday) will settle any worries he had in that respect.

"But certainly from my point of view, I never had any doubts that he would be a success coming back.

"To get off to such a start will calm him down and he will go from strength to strength now, I am sure."

City were leading 1-0 at the Stadium of Light courtesy of Stephen Ireland's strike in first-half injury-time when Wright-Phillips took up the baton.

He made it 2-0 with 50 minutes gone when he side-footed home Brazilian striker Jo's cross, and then doubled his tally eight minutes later with a neat finish from Michael Ball's pass over the top.

The win ended a good week for the club, who survived a midweek scare in Denmark to progress in the UEFA Cup and on Sunday confirmed the signings of Argentinian defender Pablo Zabaleta and Brazilian Glauber Berti.

Hughes said: "We have had a really good week. We have had two back-to-back Premier League wins, which is always difficult to do, we are still in Europe after a difficult game in midweek with extra-time as well, so it couldn't have been any better."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in