In football, they say that you should never return to a former club. The thinking behind such a viewpoint, one would assume, is that things are rarely as good the second time around.

Of course, there are those that have paid no heed to that warning, such as Shaun Wright-Phillips. Having risen through the ranks at Manchester City, where he had caught the eye of England head coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, the winger moved to champions Chelsea in the summer of 2005 for a fee in the region of £21m.

Yet, as many had predicted, Wright-Phillips struggled to establish himself under the management of both Jose Mourinho and Avram Grant, which culminated in him losing his place in the England squad for the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

Come the 2008 off-season, it was clear that Wright-Phillips had no future at Stamford Bridge. Numerous clubs were linked with his services, but it was City, for whom he had previously scored 31 goals in 181 appearances, that won the race for his signature.

What's more, there was to be no settling-in period for the 26-year-old, who was thrown in for his second City debut away at Sunderland just three days after he had re-signed. In truth, the encounter at the Stadium of Light, which was played seven years ago today, could not have gone much better for the pint-sized attacker.

It appeared that the two sides would head into the break level at 0-0, but in first-half stoppage time, Mark Hughes's visitors struck. Sunderland defender Danny Collins could only clear Michael Johnson's cross as far as Stephen Ireland and the midfielder punished the error when he fired a low shot beyond Craig Gordon.

But, from that moment onwards, proceedings belonged to the returning Wright-Phillips, who put the game out of home the side's reach within the space of 13 second-half minutes.

Sunderland failed to deal with Dietmar Hamann's drilled effort and when the ball was eventually worked wide for Brazilian striker Jo, his intended shot flew across the face of goal for Wright-Phillips to provide the finishing touch from just six yards out.

Then, City's number eight made sure of the outcome as he raced on to Michael Ball's hopeful lofted pass forward. His pace took him beyond two Sunderland defenders, before an advancing Gordon was beaten with a deft flicked shot with the outside of the boot that nestled in the far corner of the net.

Wright-Phillips departed the action five minutes from time to be replaced by Elano and he unsurprisingly received a standing ovation from the City fans that had made the trip to Wearside.

"I'm delighted for Shaun. It's great day for him and I'm sure he'll remember that performance for a long time. He's written his own story today and will rightly grab all the headlines," Hughes said after the final whistle.

As for Sunderland boss Roy Keane, who had seen his side well beaten, he added: "I'll be glad to see the back of one or two players going on international duty. City did everything better than us and we could have played all night and not scored. None of my team performed well."

SUNDERLAND: Gordon; Bardsley, Nosworthy, Collins, Chimbonda; Malbranque, Leadbitter (Murphy), Reid, Richardson; Cisse (Stokes), Diouf (Healy)

MAN CITY: Hart; Corluka, Richards (Ben-Haim), Dunne, Ball; Kompany, Ireland, Hamann, Johnson (Gelson), Wright-Phillips (Elano); Jo