It has been seven months since Manchester City became the first team in English football history to win four straight top-flight championships after defeating West Ham 3-1 on the final day. As far as City fans are concerned, it may as well be seven years: the Cityzens have lost seven of their last 10 matches, whilst they’ve also relinquished a three-goal lead in a home draw vs. Feyenoord and drawn at Crystal Palace.
By Zach Lowy
City sit 22nd in the UEFA Champions League table, one point outside of the drop zone, and after four consecutive trips to the continental elite’s final four, they find themselves in peril of missing out on a spot in the Champions League knockout round for the first time in 12 years.
Over the past decade, it has typically been City who ride into the Manchester derby brimming with confidence, whilst Manchester United enter in desperate need of a victory. This time, however, the circumstances couldn’t be more different. While Rúben Amorim is enjoying his honeymoon period at Manchester United with three wins in his last five, Pep Guardiola finds himself under the most pressure of his entire managerial career. City sit fifth in the Premier League table, one point below Nottingham Forest, and two points above Aston Villa, and they can ill afford another slip-up in Sunday’s crosstown derby at the Etihad. They need a shot in the arm, a player who can give their stagnant frontline an injection of unpredictability and dynamism…they need Jérémy Doku.
Born in Antwerp, Belgium to Ghanaian parents, Doku became the second-youngest player to debut for Anderlecht at 16 years, 5 months and 26 days on 25 November 2018. He spent the next two years working alongside former Manchester City and Belgium captain Vincent Kompany, who served as both his teammate and manager, scoring 6 goals and 7 assists in 37 appearances before leaving his boyhood club in October 2020 and joining Rennes for a club-record €26 million.
“Doku always impressed me from a young age because he has some absolutely terrific skills that you’re either born with or not,” said Sacha Tavolieri, L’Èquipe’s Belgian football specialist. “When he was 16, he was already being viewed as the best player that Anderlecht’s academy had produced since Romelu Lukaku. He’s so quick and explosive…he’s one of the rare players whose acceleration allows him to make a massive difference in such short spaces. However, he needs to improve his first touch and turning radius in order to make the most of his speed.”
“Doku initially struggled at Rennes because of his entourage. They gave him too much freedom: he would often leave Rennes and return to Brussels during his time off, he didn’t take care of his health during the offseason and would get injured as a result. However, once he broke it off with them, he started performing and soon became targeted by Guardiola himself.”
He didn’t exactly hit the ground running in France with just 4 goals and 6 assists in 55 appearances across his first two seasons, and he even found himself relegated to the bench during the first half of the 2022/23 campaign. However, after changing numbers and trading the #11 for the #10 following Kamaldeen Sulemana’s departure in January 2023, Doku finally managed to deliver his best football in Brittany with 7 goal contributions in his last 8 matches of 2022/23.
It didn’t take long before City snapped him up for £55 million, with Doku quickly adjusting to life in England. He registered 4.9 successful dribbles per 90 – more than any other player in the division – and alongside Rasmus Højlund and Alejandro Garnacho, he was one of only three U-21 players to register 11+ goal contributions. This season, Doku has the most Premier League goal contributions (4) in City’s squad after Erling Haaland (14) and Bernardo Silva (5), he’s their third-highest-rated FotMob player (7.42) after Haaland (7.62) and Mateo Kovačić (7.42), and he’s completing 5.8 successful dribbles per 90, nearly double the amount of City’s next-best dribbler – Sávinho (3.3). Despite this, Doku has struggled to cement a starting spot in attack, with five of his 11 appearances coming from the bench. Rather than giving him a consistent run in the team, Guardiola has often preferred to bring him on against tired legs.
Guardiola has achieved an unprecedented domestic dynasty in Manchester thanks to an unyielding dedication to controlled, possession-heavy football, but as a result, he’s shifted away from traditional wingers in favor of players who can retain possession and avoid costly giveaways. It’s death by a thousand passes as opposed to one mazy individual dribble, and it’s why central midfielders like Rico Lewis and Matheus Nunes have regularly gotten the nod ahead of Doku. Nonetheless, it’s all gone a bit stale over the past two months. The wingers have cut an isolated figure and failed to provide a secondary goal-scoring outlet to alleviate the burden placed on Haaland’s shoulders, and as a result, opponents have been able to foil City’s attacking gameplan and put them under severe pressure at the back. However, having a traditional winger like Doku in the team could help rectify this.
At 22 years of age, Jérémy Doku is still an enigmatic character whose end product can flatter to deceive and who gives away possession on a far-too-regular basis, second only to Sávinho and Kevin De Bruyne in City’s squad, but on his day, he can turn his fullback inside out with his swift change of direction and scintillating ball-carrying skills and add some pace and panache to his team’s attacking play. Doku has started just one of his last four available Premier League matches for City, which saw him score a goal and assist vs. Nottingham Forest: the other three saw him come off the bench and witness yet another stalemate or defeat.
The last time City played United (excluding the preseason Community Shield), Doku came on at halftime and managed to pull one back for City in the final minutes, but it was too little too late as United prevailed 2-1 in the FA Cup Final. Guardiola cannot afford to make the same mistake twice: if City are to turn around their wretched run of form on Sunday, he has to unleash Doku from the shackles of super-sub status and give him a chance to impact the game from the opening whistle.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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