Jeremy Doku’s attacking credentials are up there with the best of the planet’s young players.
Since breaking into the Anderlecht side as a 16-year-old, the Belgian’s career has been on an upward trajectory, as he closes in on his half-century of caps for Belgium following his £55million move to Manchester City in 2023.
At his best, Doku is able to combine blistering pace with fearless dribbling and the ability to create chances out of nothing. But he still sees room for improvement.
Doku on trying to emulate Raheem Sterling
Since arriving at the Etihad three seasons ago, the 24-year-old has supplied a steady flow of assists (34 in all competitions), but feels that there is significant room for improvement in front of goal.
While a late flurry of goals, including his FA Cup semi-final winner and brace at Everton took his tally up to eight strikes this season to match the career-best he set 12 months ago, Doku has his sights set higher.
In particular, he namechecks two players he wants to emulate, starting with Brazil and Real Madrid forward Vinicius Junior, who he was recently asked about.
“I was asked if I think I’m able to reach that level, and I’d be crazy if I said no,” Doku explains to FourFourTwo. “I know my qualities and where I want to go, and if I’m in more positions to score goals, I can be up there. My goals are always ones I create for myself – difficult goals, dribbling, and then shooting.
“If you have five, six or seven tap-ins a season, that already changes a lot. I’ll always have the difficult goals, so it’s just adding the easy ones – it’s very important to start being in the positions to score those.”
The second player Doku flags is his Manchester City predecessor Raheem Sterling, who he sees as a prime example of a player whose goal haul increased significantly after he made a habit of arriving at the back post to add those all-important tap-ins.
Did Pep Guardiola ever talk to him about it? “He’d tell me sometimes to be in that position, but it wasn’t like he was saying, ‘Jeremy, I’m not happy, I need more,’” Doku stresses. “It’s not as if I can be invisible for the whole game, it’s what I contribute besides goals – I’m involved, creating danger, giving key passes for goals.
“When I look at Raheem though, the amount of tap-ins that he scored, the easy goals, just because he was in that position, that’s something I really look up to.
“It might seem easy, but the most difficult thing is to get into that position. Maybe five times before that, he did it and didn’t receive the ball.
“It demands consistency, to not give up, to keep on finding those positions.”