11 | Jeremy Doku - 2023/24

[hcblue95]

This guy has been one of the most exciting parts of our season for me. People writing him off must be forgetting the last 8 years of Pep. How many new signings have had an instant impact and how many at his age? Haaland any others? Bernardo, grealish, same, rodri.... All needed time to settle and doku has played more than any of those guys!

 

[Yue Wollongong]

Doku releases the ball too late almost every time. now that he cannot dribble past defender after the first few matches, he needs to re-learn how to play a match.

 

[Blu3m00n91]

His game post injury has changed. Seems hesitant to take players on? Whereas before he was running rings around everyone

 

[TrentGrisham]

I re-watched the match when he came on, and some comments are way over the top. He was giving the ball away a bit much, but he was also helping out defensively and progressing the ball up the pitch well when we needed it. I've got complete confidence in him.

 

[JewelZee]

I re-watched the match when he came on, and some comments are way over the top. He was giving the ball away a bit much, but he was also helping out defensively and progressing the ball up the pitch well when we needed it. I've got complete confidence in him.

TG I normally agree with you on most things City but for me yesterday Doku's decisions from about 85 minutes onto the final whistle were not good. More than once he had ample time to get to the flag and burn off valuable time and instead chose to run at his man on the inside, losing possession and setting Bournemouth off in the other direction. Great young talent but not my first choice in seeing off a tense, one goal game like yesterday's...JMO, but, hey, in the end we bagged the 3 points.

I don't believe Grealish was match fit yet yesterday either regardless of him dressing...

 

[applejuice]

He was much better in the first few games.
Did Pep’s influence ruin his game?

Very predictable at the moment. I think he suffers because us playing slow against 11 behind the ball.

Nah I dont think so. It is more like that the league has worked out how to deal with him now.

Actually the drop was after Chelsea&Liverpool game. They had a demo of how to defend against him. The the rest of the league copied. If you have a good defender like Reece James you copied Poch solution. If you have a shit defender like TAA, you copied Klopp solution. Either way you can neutralize his affect of the game. Fairly common with players coming from other leagues.

Same like Akanji last season. Once the others found out his weakness in defending headers. The other copied. And then Pep pushed him sideway or forward instead of leaving him as the last defender unless there were no other options.

IMO an easy solution is to switch positions with RW during the game regularly to make it unpredictable.

 

[applejuice]

The problem isn't Doku, problem is that people lost the sense of hierarchy..

We have 100m treble-winner winger in Grealish, who earns 300K per week and has proven himself as a stable player throughout the entire 2022 / 2023 season. He is pro and should always be regarded as a regular starter...

Doku is 21 years old young player, who has proven nothing and who needs time to learn & become stable deliver of results.. Therefore he should be regarded as a valuable squad player, who is used during rotations or injury situations..

We have a lot of players like that.
Haaland, KDB, Foden, Bernardo & Grealish are our regular starters..
Julian, Doku, Bobb, Kovacic, Matheus are our bench / reserve players..

Same applies to
Ederson, Walker, Stones, Ruben, Ake, Rodri
and
Akanji, Guardiol, Rico, Gomez and Ortega

if we look from that perspective, Doku is a great addition, young & talented player, who can be rotated with regular starters whenever needed..

Correct.

But the truth is that unless Pep can play Doku and Grealish together in starting XI, these two players have to share the minutes for one spot. And a player needs to play regularly to keep rhythm and fitness. Either Doku or Grealish will not be able to keep the rhythm if the other one plays regularly. The result - as you have seen last week - Grealish was not up to match fitness after a month of warming bench and broke down after 20 mins. You cannot expect a player to be fit enough to play knockout games without sufficient game time. You have to keep on playing a player for 90mins week in and week out to build up chemistry and rhythm.

One solution, as many suggested previously, is to develop them to play different positions. That is how Pep keeps Bernado Foden and Raz fit in the past. They all play 2 or more positions. There is no sign of Pep developing either Doku or Grealish into another position other than LW. Even though both players were famous of versatility before joining City.

Otherwise Pep would have to make a tough choice between these two.

 

[OB1]

The way he took a ball out of the air at one point highlights the kind of ability this kid has.

Just been commenting on how Pep has managed Foden’s development and I expect him to do something similar with Doku. Doku is a bright boy, he will learn.

 

[Craig]

Nah I dont think so. It is more like that the league has worked out how to deal with him now.

Actually the drop was after Chelsea&Liverpool game. They had a demo of how to defend against him. The the rest of the league copied. If you have a good defender like Reece James you copied Poch solution. If you have a shit defender like TAA, you copied Klopp solution. Either way you can neutralize his affect of the game. Fairly common with players coming from other leagues.

Same like Akanji last season. Once the others found out his weakness in defending headers. The other copied. And then Pep pushed him sideway or forward instead of leaving him as the last defender unless there were no other options.

IMO an easy solution is to switch positions with RW during the game regularly to make it unpredictable.

I agree with most of that in terms of teams are much more wise to him. However, he was actually very good against Liverpool

 

[WallyA]

Personally not too worried in the long run.

Pep and staff will figure out how to best get him to work in this team.

The last 7 or so years has proven that to me.