The unwanted description of the team has plagued successive regimes but the England winger is determined that is all about to change.
“The fact that on the day I came back to City we stayed in the UEFA Cup through a last-minute own goal against Midtjylland and then won a dramatic penalty shoot-out made me smile,” he recalled.
“I’ve been here that long that I’m used to that being the way with City - it was always like that when I was coming through the ranks. We always liked to do the things the hard way, but hopefully the boss is slowly but surely getting that out of us now and this is a club geared for sustained success.
With the additions the manager has made this summer hopefully we will be flying this coming season. He was one of the reasons, along with the fans and the fact that the club is in my heart, that I came back ‘home’.
...Shaun Wright-Phillips
Wright-Phillips, now free from the knee injury that threatened to force him on to an operating table this summer, has set his sights on trophies with the Blues and a place in England’s World Cup squad in South Africa.
He admits that losing his berth in the 2006 party under Sven-Goran Eriksson, who put the then untried 17-year-old Theo Walcott ahead of him, was one of the low points of his career.
“I was gutted,” he recalled. “I played a major part in the qualifying rounds because David Beckham was injured and so to be left out was pretty confusing, but you learn something from those times in your career.”
