Raheem Sterling has the character of Cristiano Ronaldo when it comes to pulling himself out of a supposed poor run of form.
That is according to former Manchester City winger Shaun Wright-Phillips, who knows the pressures of playing in attack for the Blues, and also for Chelsea and England at the highest level.
Sterling had a quiet start to the season after a brilliant Euro 2020 in the summer and hinted that he could look to leave City if he wasn't getting more game time. However, when he did play, he wasn't having the same impact on games as City fans had become used to, with players like Phil Foden overtaking him in the pecking order.
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Since the start of November, though, Sterling has turned his form around and scored some hugely important goals, netting 12 goals and adding three assists in 19 appearances. As the season enters the business end with every game potentially influencing the Premier League title or progression in the Champions League or FA Cup, Sterling will be a key man between now and May.
And Wright-Phillips has told MEN Sport how Sterling has always been playing well this season, except he is only getting recognition for it now the goals are going in.
"It's just the fact that his chances are now going in," he said
"That's one thing you can never knock Raheem Sterling for, even when he's going through a quiet spell, he still gets into the positions. He might have been taking a touch extra, his shot gets blocked, or he misses the chance, he still gets himself into the positions which is always the hardest part.
"The part missing for him was hitting the back of the net, which we know he can do over the past four or five seasons. It didn't happen for him at the start of the season, but it's just a testament to his character both on and off the pitch.
"For me, he's just back to where we expect to see him, all players at that level have these dips from time to time. Look at Ronaldo, he's had a quiet spell, so it can happen to these sorts of players."
As well as comparisons to Ronaldo, Wright-Phillips referenced France and Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema, who raised the issue of players being judged from the outside as underperforming because their headline stats were low.
Pep Guardiola raised the same point last week in relation to Jack Grealish, defending his contribution to the team by saying statistics don't show the full picture.
"I think the criticism comes from the markers he's laid down previously," Wright-Phillips continued.
"People will say because he doesn't score one game that he had a bad game, but that's not how football works. Karim Benzema made a good point a while ago; the quote was along the lines of people only caring about numbers now rather than the actual performance.
"Before you could watch a game and judge someone off their performance to whether they had a good game or not, but now if you don't score or get an assist, then people think you haven't played well.
"That's not how football works and if it was then the majority of players wouldn't be playing because they don't put those numbers up on a game-to-game basis."
Shaun Wright-Phillips was speaking to MEN Sport on behalf of FreeSuperTips.
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