Jeremy Doku remains convinced Manchester City can turn around their Champions League tie against Real Madrid despite their 3-0 first-leg mauling.
City were stunned by a brilliant first-half hat-trick from Federico Valverde as the Spanish side shrugged off a host of injuries to win comfortably at the Bernabeu on Wednesday.
Real are now strong favourites to progress to the quarter-finals after next week’s return at the Etihad Stadium but Doku is not giving up hope.
City’s task would have been harder had Gianluigi Donnarumma not saved a second-half penalty from Vinicius Junior and the Belgian believes that moment could yet prove significant.
Doku said: “I feel like from 3-0 to 4-0 is a completely different score. I feel like that helped us massively. We’re still confident, we trust our quality.
“We know that playing at the Etihad it is a different game. We will need our fans to help us. If they can score three goals why can’t we?
“It would be crazy if I said there was no chance. Everything is possible in football so we still believe.
“If we score quickly it’s a different game with the supporters and everything, you put them under pressure.”
City started strongly as they tried to take the game to a Real side missing several players including top scorer Kylian Mbappe and England midfielder Jude Bellingham.
They failed to make the most of some early openings and paid the price as they were repeatedly caught on the break and undone by the clinical brilliance of Valverde.
The Uruguayan’s first goal came from a move Real had worked on in training as he raced on to a long ball from goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois.
Valverde said: “We’d put some emphasis on training the long ball from goal kicks. City like to press high – they go one-v-one and that meant we might have space in behind them to exploit.”
The Real captain struck three times in the space of 22 minutes in a dazzling display of close control and finishing.
Doku, however, did not feel the scoreline reflected the match.
He said: “It was not a bad game from us. Obviously they scored three goals but we had some chances.
“We were playing well but obviously we need to be better sometimes and concentrate more with the counter-attacks.
“In these types of games you need to score from the chances that we have. Otherwise, when they have a chance they score and that’s what happened.
“They were just waiting for us to make mistakes. They are a good transition team and they scored three goals so fair play to them.”
Valverde insisted Real would not take anything for granted ahead of the second leg.
He said: “We know we need to compete like a band of brothers, cover each other’s backs – that is how you achieve great things.
“Ties in Manchester are always tough – we’ll go there treating it as if it was 0-0.”
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