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It’s a fact that football is one of the hardest sports to remain consistent at. Form can evade you at any moment and once it does it’s very hard to recover it No matter how hard you work sometimes it’s just not that easy to get things going for you once again.
It could be because the team is not playing, or you are still adjusting to life at a new club, or just pure bad luck. Last season there were certain players who had a terrible time on the pitch and did not look themselves whatsoever.
But this season they have got their mojo back and are back amongst the headlines. Here are 5 forgotten stars who are back in form
5) Theo Walcott
Theo Walcott for many years has been a player who looks like he is onto something big but in the end always disappoints. The English winger has already been at the club for 10 years, making him eligible for a testimonial.
But in terms of what he has achieved at the club and what he was expected to do after he burst onto the scene as a 16-year-old, critics and fans feel they have not seen the best of him. But this season something seems to be different about the way he is approaching his games.
There seems to be more determination about him and he looks sharper and fitter and hungrier in his play. Last year Walcott only managed 5 goals all campaign, a number he has already hit this season.
Even when he’s not scoring there is more purpose about his play and he seems to be making the right decisions as well. Theo had been criticized for being too unsure of what to do when the ball is at his feet and he used to end up losing possession several times last season.
But now all that seems to have been eradicated from his game. Walcott has 8 goals in 10 appearances in all competitions and you would imagine he will have a very important role to play if Arsenal are to finally break their Premier League drought.
4) Raheem Sterling
Liverpool fans have a special hatred towards Raheem Sterling for the way he left the club a year ago. They were delighted when his season completely blew up last time out after a series of under-par performance for Manchester City.
Sterling had a breakthrough season for Liverpool before he made the big money move to City. The winger was bought for a sum of 49 million pounds but failed spectacularly on the pitch.
His movement was predictable and defenders could always read which he was going to run. Sterling scored just 6 times in the league and looked nothing like the 49 million man City thought they were getting.
The Euros was the next disaster that followed and he got stick from England fans for his performances. Pep Guardiola who had been appointed as the coach to take over from Manuel Pellegrini sent him a personal message telling him he would help him get back to his best and that he trusted him.
It seems like the Spaniard has already performed miracles with the star as he has taken the Premier League by storm this season. He already has 5 goals in all competitions this season added to the impressive assist tally as well.
Everyone is raving about his performances at the moment and it’s now up to him to keep level-headed and maintain this level of performance.
3) Edin Dzeko
Premier League fans might have forgotten about Edin Dzeko and not many can blame them for it either. Ever since he left Manchester City, the striker has fallen off the radar. He enjoyed a see-sawing career at the SkyBlues in 5 seasons.
The Bosnian hitman netted 72 goals in over a hundred appearances in those 5 seasons with his best return coming in 2013/14 when he scored 26 in all competitions. He was pretty much a bench player in his last season only scoring 6 times.
When City did not have any takers after putting him up for sale, they loaned him out to Roma. The striker failed to re-ignite the spark in the first season despite getting regular game time.
10 goals in his 29 appearances did not scream quality but Roma decided to put faith in the striker and signed him on a permanent deal. So far this season, he has really stepped up and delivered for the club.
He has already notched 10 league goals in 11 appearances and has 12 in all competitions. He currently leads the charts for goals scored across Europe. If he continues this vein of form he even has a shot at bagging the golden boot come end of the season.
2) Eden Hazard
You just knew his name just had to pop up in this sort of list. Eden Hazard began the 2015/16 campaign as the PFA player of the year and ended it with 4 goals in the Premier League.
In fact, he did not score a single goal until the 23rd of March 2016 when he scored a brace against Bournemouth as Chelsea endured their worst season since the Roman Abramovich era began.
8 months later and Chelsea are flying. They currently sit 2nd in the table and are ripping up Premier League defenses with some scintillating football. Antonio Conte has transformed the mentality of this team and have made them absolutely brilliant going forward and in defense.
Hazard’s new role in the team has a lot to do with that as well. The Blues had a decent start to the new season but you felt they still weren’t the finished article. Their weaknesses were exposed when they were hammered by Arsenal 3-0 in a game that was the turning point.
Since then Chelsea have not conceded in 450 minutes of football scoring 16 goals in the process. Hazard is back to his world class best scoring 7 goals and grabbing two assists as well. Conte’s men are suddenly the league favorites after it looked like they would endure another transitory year.
1) Mario Balotelli
Why always you Mario? Balotelli was never a forgotten man in the media sense of the word. He was always a name that every football fan was never gonna forget. A player the media just gobbled up all day long because of his antics on and off the pitch.
But somewhere Mario got lost along the way and he was no more grabbing the headlines. Neither was he performing on the pitch nor was he making his own headlines with his self-perpetuated craziness.
The world wondered when he would awake from his slumber and even ruled him out to ever hit the heights he achieved at Inter and his first couple of years at Manchester City. But that all changed when he moved to Nice in France on a free from Liverpool.
Mario is well and truly back this season. The forgotten man has suddenly burst into life in France and can’t stop scoring at the moment. Lucien Favre seems to have ignited the fire that was slowly dying out.
Balotelli after scoring just 2 league goals in 2 years now has 6 in his first 6 appearances for Nice as they sit pretty on top of Ligue 1. It’s quite a remarkable turnaround and the Italian has even suggested he will come back to the Premier League in a year and prove his doubters wrong.
