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Manchester City winger Jeremy Doku speaks ahead of the FA Cup semi-final on his ambitions to be talked about differently
Jeremy Doku wants to be seen as the best winger in the world - and the Manchester City man knows how to do it.
Doku's dazzling ability with the ball at his feet was obvious from an early age, and he became one of the youngest debutants in Anderlecht history as a 16-year-old in November 2018. The following season, his new coach Vincent Kompany would tell the teenager that he saw him playing at a club like City, even though Doku struggled to see it himself; he now does not see it as a coincidence that the Blues opted to sign a player so highly rated by their former captain, who is now himself one of the best coaches in the game.
City knew they were getting an explosive talent when they signed Doku in 2023 but they were also aware of the injury battles that had arisen from a player so dependent on acceleration in his game, while there were also concerns over his final product. It was a difficult summer for everyone at the club working out how to move on from a team that had won the Treble and who to move on.
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"It's not easy because you come from Rennes. I'm sure that they didn't watch a lot. I'm sure that they didn't watch a lot of my games in France, my teammates. So maybe they didn't know me," he said.
"You have to prove, you have to also show that I deserve to be here. Nothing will be given to you. You have to take it. And that was also my mentality. So I wanted just to show my capabilities, what I'm able to do and that's what I tried to do.
"Coming into the dressing room, you have to also acknowledge that you play with top quality players. So you also have to raise your standards up and raise your quality up. And I felt like the coach also welcomed me well. The teammates did as well. They were all nice with me. So I fitted in well.
"I think when they buy players, they know which mentality, which characteristics the players have. And also we have a coach that's very passionate, pushes us every time. We have experienced players that won a lot who are still hungry.
"We have young players that come in this club and know that, oh, this club is used to winning trophies. So we're all driven by that. We all want to win trophies. We all want to be among the best. If you look at every player here, that's their goal.
"If you're there without competition, maybe you will not feel the pressure. But in this club, you know that they always buy players, which is normal, to make the team better. You need to make the team better. You need to make the team competitive and that's what they have been doing.
"This has been working as well. And for me, that's fine because at the end of the day, that pushes me as well to work harder to know that, oh, there's someone in my back that wants to play. There's someone forward that needs to take his place. But it's all like, not in a bad way. It’s all in a good way, a healthy competition."
Doku's journey at City has, like his dribbling, not been straightforward. Pep Guardiola has called him the best in the world over five metres and he has the ability to produce matchwinning moments against quality opposition - usually Liverpool but also United this season.
His end product and his fitness have both frustrated at different points though, and Guardiola said earlier this season that he didn't think the winger would ever be a prolific scorer. That is criticism that Doku accepts but is working to improve as he looks to evolve his game in the way that Raheem Sterling did so successfully at City to find ways of scoring simple goals.
"I feel like assists, in that area, I'm fine. I feel like I'm doing well in that area because that doesn't always depend on you. So key passes and assists, I feel like that area that's all right. I feel like the goals is more… I have to be more in the areas where you can score easy goals, you know, tap-ins and stuff like that," he said.
"Sometimes in the game, you get, not distracted, but you don't realise sometimes what you're doing and you don't realise that you're not in that position where you should be to just score the easy goals. When I look at all my goals even this season, every time dribbles, every time when I do it myself, and I just want to score also, I don't know, even five tap-ins the season, that makes a big difference."
Doku has made himself into a valuable part of Guardiola's starting XI for the biggest games, despite that lack of goals, because of everything else he offers to the team. Rayan Cherki is the only teammate to have more than his eight assists in all competitions and he has left enough defenders dizzy that he is now regularly marked by two if not three defenders when he gets the ball; it is no coincidence that Nico O'Reilly is able to find himself free in the final third when he is playing next to Doku.
With the freedom that he is given to operate in the final third though - and he is, whatever the myth about Guardiola stifling wingers - the 23-year-old knows that goals are the currency he must buy into if he wants to reach his goal of being talked about as one of the best wingers in the world rather than just a promising talent.
"At the end of the day, it's me, it's my responsibility to be consistent, to be always unstoppable, to be always difficult to retain and to be always reliable as a player for my team, for my coach, for this club, and that's what I want to do," he said.
"You should ask defenders what they think. What do they think? But I'm sure that they would say that, obviously if I score goals, this is a different conversation that we have. A winger needs to score. If I have those goals then I believe that I can get there for sure. 100 per cent.
"I know one versus one, obviously that's my biggest quality. I’m not going to hide behind it. That's my biggest quality and that's my talent. But for sure, goals need to come as well. And I know that if I have goals, yeah, like I said, it's a different conversation that we're having."
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