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In a video on Jeremy Doku’s YouTube channel, the Manchester City winger recently put his footballing desires into the starkest possible terms: ‘I want to kill my defender. I want them to have nightmares.’
With that in mind, did anyone check in on Conor Bradley this morning?
Just five days after the Liverpool full back had one of the world’s best in Vinicius Junior on lockdown at Anfield, it was Doku who left Bradley with a sleepless night.
Doku showed in City’s comprehensive win on Sunday not just how much he has improved for a player consistently lamented for his lack of end product, as his rocket into the top corner made it 3-0, but also how crucial a weapon he has become for Pep Guardiola’s new version of City.
DRIBBLE KING
Few players carry the ball as often or as well as Doku.
The Liverpool victory was the 13th time he’s tried to dribble past his opponent 10 times or more in a single Premier League game. No player has done so more often since Doku has been in the division.
Few players carry the ball as often or as well as Jeremy Doku, who took his marker on 10 times in Manchester City's 3-0 thumping of Liverpool
Doku's 10 attempted dribbles at the Etihad on Sunday wasn't even especially high by his standards - he took on his marker 21 times in City’s defeat in the same fixture last season, the most dribbles a player has attempted in a Premier League match since 2019.
It's not just the frequency of his dribbling, though, but how often he succeeds. Doku rarely just runs down blind alleys. Of the players to take on their opponent at least 160 times since the Belgian's first Premier League season, no one beats their man at a higher success rate than Doku.
He was frequently doubled-up on down City's left side by Bradley and Ryan Gravenberch but kept finding a way through regardless. From this tight spot (below), Doku somehow dribbled past both Liverpool players and got a shot away.
Doku has to contend with two Liverpool defenders in Conor Bradley and Ryan Gravenberch but the Reds duo are still powerless to stop him
What Doku does so well sounds so simple but is so important: he moves the ball closer to the opposition goal. And he does so better than anyone else in the division.
Since the start of Doku’s first season in the Premier League, of the top 20 most ‘progressive carries’ made in a single game by a forward – what Opta defines as a carry that moves the ball at least five metres upfield – the City winger makes up 13 of them, including six of the top seven.
And now, more than ever, Guardiola has found a way to make the most of that ability.
PEP'S NEW WAY OF PLAYING
The summer arrival of Rayan Ait-Nouri signalled that Guardiola was primed to tweak his style. Ait-Nouri was one of the most attacking full backs in the Premier League, forever bombing forward, so if Guardiola was signing a player of his ilk, he wasn’t about to tell him to tuck inside to provide an extra man in midfield.
And so it has proved. While it wasn’t Ait-Nouri at the Etihad but the ever-impressive youngster Nico O’Reilly, Guardiola now likes his full backs, especially on the left, to push forward in attack. As we saw against Liverpool, that makes Doku even more destructive and much of that comes down to the freedom Guardiola has given him.
For so much of his career, Guardiola has been a coach strict on structure. This is your position on the pitch, these are your instructions. It’s one reason a maverick like Jack Grealish often struggled to thrive. But Guardiola’s latest tactical shift has been to give Doku licence to drift.
He doesn’t have to stay high and wide to stretch the pitch as much as possible to give creative midfielders like Kevin De Bruyne the space to work their magic like the old days. Nor does he just have to stay central to congest the middle of the park.
Against Liverpool, Doku showed he has the freedom to do both. He stayed central while O’Reilly charged beyond him on the outside, as he did in the build-up to his 20-yard stunner, or he stayed wide himself and drew defenders as the full back made an underlapping run on the inside.
The pair chopped and changed and Bradley, who was offered little defensive support by Mohamed Salah in front him, didn’t know what to do. In the example below from the second half, Doku drives at Bradley but the full back is unsure whether to close him down or cut off the pass to O’Reilly running beyond him.
Nico O'Reilly makes an overlapping run down the left flank, drawing Bradley's attention away from the onrushing Doku
It happened all game. Another example from early in the first half shows Doku as he carries the ball forward from a central area with O’Reilly ahead of him. With Salah ambling back, the only help Bradley gets is from Gravenberch having to be dragged wide.
With Mohamed Salah caught up the pitch and doing little to help defensively, Doku and O'Reilly create a two-on-one against Bradley
But then they’d switch. Doku would burst forward in wide areas, pulling Bradley with him and allowing O’Reilly to attack the central space.
Both O'Reilly and Doku would go on the outside in attacking situations, with the Belgian pulling Bradley wide here
Even when Bradley and Gravenberch tried to double up, Doku found a way through either by dribbling past them or finding a pass to split them. Suddenly, City have the ball in the penalty area.
To go with his potent dribbling threat, Doku also played some incisive passes against Liverpool - such as this ball into O'Reilly in the box
Doku is relishing the opportunity to express himself. ‘If I get freedom I'm not going to say no,’ the winger told reporters after the game. ‘Of course I prefer that. Getting inside, getting outside, go where the ball is. It makes it unpredictable for the opponents so I like it.’
Guardiola knows he can use his battering ram all over the pitch. At times against Liverpool, he was even free to make runs over to the right wing. In their victory over Bournemouth, he told Doku to drive through the middle to help crowd the central areas, draw defenders towards him and allow Erling Haaland and others to exploit the space in behind the Cherries’ defence.
Against Bournemouth, Doku drives through the middle of the pitch, drawing defenders towards him and allowing Erling Haaland to exploit space in behind the backline
Doku again attracts the attention of the Cherries defenders, giving O'Reilly a free run into a dangerous area
In a division in which players dribble less than ever, Doku’s unique ability to carry the ball helps Guardiola solve a problem that’s been growing over the last couple of seasons.
Opponents were so startled by Guardiola’s sides in the early days that teams just sat deep, parked the bus, and hoped for the best. But, as the years have gone on, teams of all sizes have learned to press better than ever before and many have found joy in closing City down high up the pitch.
That, too, is now where Doku helps liberate City. When teams close them down inside their own half, Doku’s ability to beat one, two or three opponents can turn defence into attack in a heartbeat.
Midway through the first half, Liverpool had City surrounded near their own corner flag. O’Reilly and Phil Foden managed to wriggle through a crowd of bodies but even when Doku received the ball he had three red shirts around him.
No bother. A drop of the shoulder and neat pass inside to Nico Gonzalez later and Doku takes all three markers out of the game and springs a City counter-attack.
Doku receives the ball deep in his own half with three Liverpool players around him... but he quickly drops his shoulder and beats all three to launch a counter attack
Doku is helping Guardiola at both ends of the pitch.
FINDING A FINISH
The other big difference alongside Guardiola’s tactical tweak is that Doku is, finally, less frustrating when it matters.
Doku hired a personal analyst in the summer to watch his videos and help him improve his decision making in the final third.
It’s working. When Doku left the field to rapturous applause on Sunday, he did so as the first player to score, complete seven dribbles, win at least 10 duels, create at least three chances and have at least three shots on target in a Premier League game since Eden Hazard in 2019.
As he crossed the touchline, he shared an embrace with Guardiola, who has been working with Doku on his shooting.
‘It was a quick joke,’ revealed Doku later. ‘We were talking during training about my body position when I shoot and we were talking about it now that I scored. It is difficult to explain, just that I have to put my body above the ball when I shoot so I can put more power (in it), something like that.’
Doku, who has been working on his finishing on the training ground with Pep Guardiola, bends in a beauty against Liverpool
Doku celebrates his sublime strike with O'Reilly - he says he is now 'full of confidence'
That’s clearly working too if his curling effort into the top corner is anything to go by. And he hopes there is even more to come.
‘I feel like I just have confidence,’ added Doku. ‘I'm just happy that now I can deliver the way I want to play without any fear or doubt or anything, and just full confidence and that's what you see today.
‘I’m 23 years old, I hope this is not my peak level. I hope I can still improve, I improve my finishing, improve my movements in the box, improve my decision making, improve on my awareness when I have the ball. A lot.
‘This is an unfinished product and I hope with these team-mates and a very good coach like Pep I can still improve.’
