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The Premier League is home to some of the best footballers on the planet. And such is the nature of the top level of the game that if you don't perform at your best every single season, you face the risk of falling behind.
However, every player goes through a bad patch every now and then. What's more important is whether they come back with a vengeance to remind the world of their worth once again.
With that in mind, here's a list of five players who have a point to prove this season:
#5 James Maddison
The England national team are spoilt for choices when it comes to certain positions. One of them is attacking midfield, where they have excellent options such as Jack Grealish, Mason Mount, Phil Foden, and James Maddison. Only one of them missed out on the Euros squad though, and that was the Leicester number 10.
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The former Norwich playmaker had a below-par season last time around and will be looking to prove a point. The 24-year-old struggled for fitness and form, and when the Foxes changed formation, he found himself out of the starting XI regularly. Even for big games like the FA Cup final.
There were also murmurs of indiscipline surrounding Maddison that hadn't gone down well with manager Brendan Rodgers.
Regardless, there's obviously a great player in there. Despite having a shaky season in 2020-21, he contributed eight goals and seven assists. He's also been linked with Arsenal for a move worth £60m. Irrespective of whether he stays on at Leicester or not, Maddison needs to step up this season and put himself back in the reckoning for the England squad.
#4 Timo Werner
Timo Werner scored a whopping 28 goals in his last Bundesliga season. Naturally, when he was bought by Chelsea, people expected him to fully explode during the 2020-21 campaign. But it's fair to say that didn't quite happen. He only managed six goals and 12 assists in the league, which is an okay return for someone adjusting to a new team, new league, new country.
But that is not the problem. More often than not, the 25-year-old has played well. His movement, for example, is exceptional. The problem was that he kept missing gilt-edged chances with worrying regularity. Now that he has settled in at the Blues, a better return can be expected from the German.
That said, the imminent arrival of Romelu Lukaku comes with its own set of problems. On paper, Lukaku and Werner seem to be a great fit, especially considering the latter's movement into space which would seem to benefit the former. However, Werner would have to contest against the likes of Mason Mount, Hakim Ziyech, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Kai Havertz for a starting berth in order to begin to show what he's really capable of in the Premier League.
#3 Sadio Mane
Had anyone said 12 months ago that Sadio Mane was world class, everyone would have been in unanimous agreement with that statement. If you do that right now, though, you might be faced with murmurs of disagreement.
Make no mistake, Mane is certainly still very good. However, last season he suffered a serious dip in form. Although his 11 goals in the league are still quite good on their own, they certainly pale in comparison to the 18 and 22 that he had managed in the two seasons prior.
The 29-year-old's dip in form left Salah with too much to do on his own. However, it's worth mentioning that aside from Salah's heroics, Liverpool were, in general, pretty terrible for the majority of last season. And Mane suffered from that.
At the same time, it is also worth noting that if the Senegalese doesn't fire this season, it wouldn't be surprising to see him out of the team soon.
#2 Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's case is not all that different from Mane's. The pedigree of the player is not in question. After all, the 32-year-old has won the Golden Boot in both the Premier League as well as the Bundesliga.
The point he has to prove is that last season was just a rare bout of poor form and not the beginning of his decline. The Gabonese's inability to score goals last season hurt Arsenal a lot. Despite having the third-best defense in the league, they only finished eighth.
With the Gunners' attack seeing no obvious improvement outside the return of Gabriel Martinelli, the onus will be on Aubameyang to fire Arsenal to a European place at the very minimum. In order to do so, he will have to significantly improve on his output of 10 goals and produce something closer to the tally of 22 that won him the Golden Boot in 2018-19.
#1 Raheem Sterling
In most cases, good performance in international tournaments boosts a player's value by a lot. Raheem Sterling was a player of the tournament candidate at the Euros but it's still very likely that he will be the fourth choice winger at Manchester City this season.
Sterling, alongside others like De Bruyne, Fernandinho and Ederson, has been pillars of Guardiola's reign at City. But he has found himself out of favor of late. His indifferent form has meant that others like Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez have moved ahead of him in the pecking order. And now, with Jack Grealish signed up and the arrival of Harry Kane looking likely as well, it seems that gametime will be hard to come by for the 26-year-old.
But given the chance, he can still be exceptional, as he showed for England at the Euros. There as well, he wasn't expected to start but Southgate backed him and the Jamaican emerged as the best player from England, if not of the entire tournament. If Pep Guardiola decides to do the same, Sterling could be back to his frightening best.
