11 | Jeremy Doku - 2023/24

[Craig]

You have mentioned a couple of times that it was ‘barely down to Doku’. It was today. Not just him to be fair but defensively he was woeful.
It’s not a witchhunt, he’s a young lad, he’ll get better. But don’t defend the indefensible. He was poor. Pep pulled him. We looked better without him. We move on.
Plenty of times we have looked better with him but today wasn’t one of those days.

It wasn’t though the whole lot of them apart from maybe 3 of the defenders were miles off it. We weren’t much better after half time until the 2nd goal. That only came because they’d grown in confidence that much they pushed on earlier than most teams would against us at 1-0 down and left space for Haaland. He lost the ball 2/3 times in dangerous areas but name someone who didn’t? He was getting it in those positions because we were that sloppy we were unable to get him the ball higher up the pitch. The couple of times we did he did alright. Not really sure how much better he could be defensively when we continuously lost the ball and they kept breaking at pace.

 

[Craig]

Always seem to perform better when he is a sub …. Think he would be best used this way until he shows more consistency ….

Forgetting that in his 2 previous starts he’d been very good and motm in one of them. Hard for any winger when the midfield can’t string 3 passes together and the fullback behind his plays terribly

 

[Gabriel]

28 games played on the left and 8 played on the right. Looks less comfortable on the right because the ball is too often played to his left-foot, and the time it takes him to transfer it to his right can allow the defender to close the space. He also needs to accept that when playing on the right he doesn't have to attack every time. Recycling it can be just as an effective ploy.

 

[JTBlue1999]

Not the best performance from Doku today but 21-year-old wingers are rarely consistent. Need him to work harder tracking back and keep working on the end product and I could see him becoming unplayable.

Easy to forget he's making the jump from Rennes to playing in toughest league in the world and playing for the best club in the world. Just needs time to refine his game.

Also not a fan of putting him on the RW. Doku is clearly much more comfortable on the LW, problem is that's where Grealish plays.

 

[skillman]

Didn’t think he was terrible and was the obvious choice to take off given Pep was chasing control - Grealish gives you more of that and we weren’t exactly threatening.

So best to kill them with passing and it worked.

 

[JewelZee]

It wasn’t though the whole lot of them apart from maybe 3 of the defenders were miles off it. We weren’t much better after half time until the 2nd goal. That only came because they’d grown in confidence that much they pushed on earlier than most teams would against us at 1-0 down and left space for Haaland. He lost the ball 2/3 times in dangerous areas but name someone who didn’t? He was getting it in those positions because we were that sloppy we were unable to get him the ball higher up the pitch. The couple of times we did he did alright. Not really sure how much better he could be defensively when we continuously lost the ball and they kept breaking at pace.

He was committing totally unnecessary fouls in dangerous areas. I was begging for Pep to take him off at halftime. I really like Doku, but today I liked him off the pitch. Not a crime, just not his day,,,

 

[mancityscot]

Didn’t think he was terrible and was the obvious choice to take off given Pep was chasing control - Grealish gives you more of that and we weren’t exactly threatening.

So best to kill them with passing and it worked.

I really like him but yesterday was not his day. Gave away some silly fouls, lost the ball and didnt contribute anything going forward. Just an off performance.

 

[St.Pauli support]

With Phil being fit Doku would have been on the bench like in most away games.

Pep prefers him at home when opponents sit deeper and don't have their vocal support. And yes, Doku AND Walker was a suicide right side.

The experiment has been terminated at half time.

 

[shevtheblue]

It wasn’t though the whole lot of them apart from maybe 3 of the defenders were miles off it. We weren’t much better after half time until the 2nd goal. That only came because they’d grown in confidence that much they pushed on earlier than most teams would against us at 1-0 down and left space for Haaland. He lost the ball 2/3 times in dangerous areas but name someone who didn’t? He was getting it in those positions because we were that sloppy we were unable to get him the ball higher up the pitch. The couple of times we did he did alright. Not really sure how much better he could be defensively when we continuously lost the ball and they kept breaking at pace.

We do need to bare in mind he's very young and will make mistakes, everyone was at it yesterday, but the one thing that's unacceptable and the reason he came off was lack of workrate. You lose the ball, you leg it back, you see a break on and someone else has lost it, you leg it back. The few times he did do it he was late rushing back and then rash in the challenge. Grealish learnt that the hard way and now he's one of the best at it. Off the ball work to Pep in our system is more important that on the ball, but workrate is the minimum and IMO its the reason he came off. But it's also something thats easy to learn, and he will pick it up next time he gets a start.

At the moment i think coming off the bench suits him better, he is best against tired legs and tired minds so when he comes on its a shock to the system.

 

[alexmcity]

We didn't really improve in the first 15-20 minutes of the 2nd half. The introduction of Kovacic didn't change things instantly. Actually, we managed to get worse and invited waves of attacks with misplaced passes all over the pitch. Only after Forest got a bit tired could we hit our normal levels of pass completion. This was possibly our worst performance after Villa away. Great that we managed to survive.