11 | Jeremy Doku - 2025/26

Belgian Flash said:
Thats a lot of diverse profiles. Mbappe, Raphinha and Dembele are practically central players by now. Yamal would be severely hampered in this City side. Vinicius would be Pep's biggest nightmare. He gets one out of ten attempts right and has zero regard for consequences on defense. Kvara, and Olise are more or less at the same level as City's wingers. Kvara would basically be a Grealish clone here.

All of these players thrive on freedom. Doku and Savinho freedom is very limited to specific situations. They are forced to play much less instinctively than all of these players. In the end it works for the team even if it doesn't work for their stats.
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BF c'mon mate, our wingers are on the same level as Kvara and Olise? Yamal would be hampered? Was Mahrez hampered?
Mbappe is more of a hybrid by necessity based on Real's personnel. He would still be the most dangerous wide player on the planet if played there. Dembele is in a similar situation. As for Raphinha, he is still predominantly a wide player.
If, for example, we had Olise and Kvara instead of Doku and Savinho we'd be miles better. Not a knock on our guys. Just a bit of truth...
 
Alan Harper's Tash said:
He’s totally adapted his game plan since Sterling and Sane were here, so to suggest he only buys players that suit a certain system seems wrong.

As you say, the focal point is Haaland. Despite this, Doku has hardly assisted him in his time here, so there’s no way that Pep has maximised his output.

If we bought someone like Semenyo, someone with a real goal threat, would;’t that free up more space for Haaland as the opposition would have to shut Semenyo down too?
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Again the plan A is not for Doku to assist Haaland. Its for Doku to draw players, provide spacing and release the little throughball to the underlapping CM to the touchline for a cutback to Haaland.

Hardly anyone could free up more space for Haaland than Doku or Savinho do right now in an extremely slow and possession based system. Almost every game a major part of the opposition's defensive plan is to stop Doku. Its not that they are not shutting him down. He doesn't have stats because they do shut him down. When they don't, he causes damage. But when they do, others cause the damage. Its by design.
 
Belgian Flash said:
Again the plan A is not for Doku to assist Haaland. Its for Doku to draw players, provide spacing and release the little throughball to the underlapping CM to the touchline for a cutback to Haaland.

Hardly anyone could free up more space for Haaland than Doku or Savinho do right now in an extremely slow and possession based system. Almost every game a major part of the opposition's defensive plan is to stop Doku. Its not that they are not shutting him down. He doesn't have stats because they do shut him down. When they don't, he causes damage. But when they do, others cause the damage. Its by design.
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Hmm, that’s exactly what Grealish did and that’s not worked out for him.
 
Belgian Flash said:
Again the plan A is not for Doku to assist Haaland. Its for Doku to draw players, provide spacing and release the little throughball to the underlapping CM to the touchline for a cutback to Haaland.

Hardly anyone could free up more space for Haaland than Doku or Savinho do right now in an extremely slow and possession based system. Almost every game a major part of the opposition's defensive plan is to stop Doku. Its not that they are not shutting him down. He doesn't have stats because they do shut him down. When they don't, he causes damage. But when they do, others cause the damage. Its by design.
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Well if you’ve worked it out, then I can imagine so have majority of the premier league’s managers.
 
BlueTG said:
Well if you’ve worked it out, then I can imagine so have majority of the premier league’s managers.
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Thats why there is a plan B and C. Working it out doesn't necessarily mean it can be stopped. Some teams allow Doku to do his thing, and we saw how devastating that can be against Arsenal.
 
Alan Harper's Tash said:
It did for a few months in 2023 which brought us a treble.

It got found out quite quickly afterwards though.
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A treble is a big reward. And I still think the level of control, progression and chance creation that Grealish brought, as well as his defensive contribution is massively underrated around here. IMO he was sold not because of his game but because of his fitness issues.
 
Belgian Flash said:
A treble is a big reward. And I still think the level of control, progression and chance creation that Grealish brought, as well as his defensive contribution is massively underrated around here. IMO he was sold not because of his game but because of his fitness issues.
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I agree. Grealish brought far more control than Doku does.
 
Alan Harper's Tash said:
I agree. Grealish brought far more control than Doku does.
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Nobody brings more control than Grealish. But Doku is also very hard to dispossess, and he generally knows when he needs to recycle the ball or just progress it. What he lags behind Grealish he compensates with a greater ability to break inside and unsettle the defense.
 
Stelea said:
He has been rank since he was needlessly dropped v Brentford. Doesn’t now deserve to play v Villa. Savinho has looked better. Bring in Mahmoush v Villa with Doku to come on if we are chasing the the game.
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Doku wasn’t needlessly dropped. He was just rotated. He’s not a player who can play every game. He’s missed 72 games in the last four seasons through injuries. 24 games missed with torn hamstrings (maybe more if ‘muscle injury’ and ‘unknown injury’ were also hamstrings).

IMG_2741.jpeg

As well as playing for City, he’s always selected to play for Belgium when fit. He’s started all 6 games for them this season, with four full 90mins.
 
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He was a bright spark when he came on, but people got way too carried away with themselves over his opening few games.

I firmly believe he will never be a top level talent. He just doesn't have the consistent end product required.
 
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