On the face of it, Jérémy Doku has had an impressive start to life at Manchester City. He scored the equaliser early in the second half against West Ham, helped himself to another goal against RB Leipzig, and was brilliant in the first half against Brighton last Saturday, darting to the line to cut the ball back for Julian Álvarez’s opener and generally tormenting James Milner.
His check and acceleration to swoop past Igor Julio before his cross for Álvarez was simple but devastating. Already he looks the sort of winger no full-back can risk being exposed against. What more could be asked of a 21-year-old moving to a new country, making the huge step up from Rennes?
But it’s the nature of Manchester City and how dominant they have been that the slightest imperfection is seized upon by a culture desperate for the drama of a real title race, by a league that recognises a sixth title in seven years for the same club would make a mockery of its claims of competitiveness. And it’s the nature of Pep Guardiola and his influence that football now looks beyond goals and assists and worries about the whole.
That is always the caveat when talking about City. For any other club, 21 points from the first nine games of the season would be regarded as an excellent start. If there are slight doubts, it is only in the context of a team that are routinely brilliant, that have made 95+ points seem standard for champions. For anybody else, they would be almost imperceptible wrinkles. But City’s start to the season has been slightly patchy.
When they won their first six games, the sense was of the implacability of old, of the familiar remorseless machine. It was true that they had gone ahead against Fulham with a goal that should have been ruled out for offside, but they had then won 5-1. And it was true that they had been behind against West Ham at half-time, and needed a late winner to beat Sheffield United, but the tendency was to credit the wins rather than wonder about the reason they needed the late goals.
The win over Brighton bore a similar ambiguity: City were at times unstoppable in the first half, and seemed to have the game won, but then, while never exactly hanging on, found themselves under pressure having conceded. Was that just a team managing the game having got into a dominant position, or evidence that the first-half excellence was a consequence of facing a 37-year-old right-back?
The defeats to Wolves and Arsenal, the first time City had lost back-to-back league games since December 2018, suggested they might not be quite as invincible as they have been. That said, only once before have they won more than seven of their opening nine games. Twice in the past seven years City have had fewer points at this stage of the season and gone on to win the title. But that they have scored only 19 goals at this stage as opposed to 33 last season does feel significant.
A slight loss of sharpness having won the treble last season is perhaps inevitable, particularly when the two ways of improving on last season, by adding the Community Shield or the Carabao Cup, have both gone already. But then last season, City only hit their stride from the end of February onwards, producing three months of extraordinary football in which they were in effect unbeatable.
Guardiola schedules his training so that City should peak in the spring; a comparatively slow start is to an extent factored in. And there was always going to be a period of readjustment as City got used to the exit of Ilkay Gündogan, the impact of which was exacerbated by the suspension of Rodri. It’s perhaps too much to speak of a dependency but it is indicative of just how important he is to City’s structure that their last four defeats have coincided with Rodri’s last four absences. There is probably no better player in the world than Rodri at countering the counter, which has always been Guardiola’s obsession, but it is notable how often he uses the word “control” when talking about Jack Grealish, who last season became the ideal Guardiola winger, tempering his instinct to dribble so as to help preserve possession until City were set. Guardiola in effect reprogrammed Grealish, a process that is in its infancy with Doku, who still tears at opponents.
Last season, Grealish averaged 4.82 take-ons per 90 minutes; Doku this season has averaged 8.42. Although Doku’s success rates in dribbles is better than Grealish’s, the net result is that he loses the ball twice as often. Conversely, Grealish attempts more passes, 39.6 per 90 minutes to 32.5, at a higher completion rate, 84.1% to 78.1%.
That means City hold the ball less well, which reduces their fluency as they have to compensate for the possibility of possession being lost. That perhaps in part explains the slight sense of stodginess (by their standards) this season – although, of course, the absence of Kevin De Bruyne, with those through balls that arc naturally from his right foot into the path of Erling Haaland, also makes a huge difference.
The knock-on effect of the way Doku loses possession is that opposition attacks have focused on the City left flank this season, something particularly notable in their defeat at Wolves, when Pedro Neto repeatedly ran at an exposed Nathan Aké.
Sunday’s Manchester derby could, then, be a big game for Antony – who is, frankly, overdue one. But there is little in United’s recent form to suggest they can unsettle City: an awful lot of heroics have been expended to see off Brentford, Sheffield United and FC Copenhagen.
The comparison with United highlights just how minor are the doubts about City. They may not be in the form of the spring, Haaland may be scoring only at the level of a normal great centre-forward rather than a superhuman one, and there may be questions about Doku’s precise role, but they remain a supremely well-constructed football team.
