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THE WRIGHT STUFF

Posted on: Wed 15 Jul 2009

LONDON-BORN Bradley Wright-Phillips is the son of Arsenal and England player Ian Wright, and younger half-brother to England winger Shaun Wright-Phillips, with whom he used to play at Manchester City.

Bradley, 24, made a sensational start to his league career when, as a teenager, he scored within four minutes of coming on as a substitute for Manchester City in their Premiership game at Middlesbrough in December 2004.

Kevin Keegan, the City manager who gave Bradley his debut, said: "He has that ability to score goals and is probably a better finisher than his brother.

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"The beauty of him is that he doesn't need to be taught how to finish. He is a real predator, a natural goalscorer, and he reminds me of his dad."

Bradley had previously started two League Cup ties that season.

Bradley went on to make 32 Premier League appearances for City in two seasons in the first-team squad, all but one - a 1-0 home defeat by Wigan in March 2006 - from the substitutes' bench.

He scored one other Premier League goal, in a 4-1 home win against Birmingham a year after his senstational debut, and also played in six more cup games, without scoring.

In the summer of 2006, he moved to then Championship side Southampton for £750,000, and again scored on his debut, a 2-2 draw at Derby.

A third of that fee was paid by Championship sponsors Coca-Cola as the prize money won by one of the club's supporters in a competition.

The Green Army first saw Bradley in September 2006, when he came on as a second-half substitute during the Saints' 1-0 victory over Ian Holloway's Pilgrims at St Mary's.

In 44 games for the Saints that season, including 19 starts, Bradley scored 11 goals, the fine form of Kenwyne Jones and Grzegorz Rasiak making it hard for him to hold down a regular place.

He followed his debut season's tally with eight strikes from 43 games in 2007-08, when he was a more frequent starter.

One of those goals was at Home Park in January, when he opened the scoring for the Saints in the 12th minute, before Rory Fallon netted four minutes after half-time to earn us a 1-1 draw.

Last season, he scored six times from 17 starts and made another 17 appearances from the bench in a struggling young Saints side.

The highlight was undoubtedly the pair he netted at Reading in November to give Southampton a shock 2-1 victory.

He also netted the last Saints goal of their relegation campaign during the 3-1 defeat at Nottingham Forest on the final day of the season.

Following that, and with his contract due to expire, he was told to look for a new club.

He visited Plymouth last month for talks with Argyle manager Paul Sturrock, and also garnered interest from, among others, fellow Championship club Crystal Palace.

However, he had been training with Southampton since Saints' players returned from their break on June 15.

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