Trent Alexander-Arnold was walking off the pitch at the Etihad Stadium last month when he began imitating to a team-mate what it is like when Jeremy Doku sizes you up one-on-one.
Real Madrid beat Manchester City in both games to progress to the Champions League quarter-finals so it was little wonder the former Liverpool defender was all laughs and smiles in that moment.
But Real had often sought to double up on Doku and, as Alexander-Arnold mimicked those rat-a-tat-tat shoulder drops and feints that are the explosive winger’s calling card, it was a window into life trying to stymie the Belgium international’s threat.
“I saw that video – it was a good battle against him,” Doku said. “I like to play against him. You see when I play now, there’s most of the time two defenders on me, which is not a problem because that means another player is free.
“But I know one versus one, obviously that’s my biggest quality. I’m not going to hide behind it. That’s my talent. But for sure, goals need to come as well. And I know that if I have [more] goals, yeah, it’s a different conversation that we’re having.”
By “conversation”, Doku means being talked about as the best winger in world football.
In November, Doku claimed City’s final goal in a 3-0 win over Liverpool in Pep Guardiola’s 1,000th game as manager when he surged inside Ibrahima Konaté and fired a vicious curling drive into the top corner.
Afterwards, Guardiola suggested he thought Doku would “never be a top scorer, to be honest” before adding that he was “demanding himself to be better” and talked about how much the player listens.
It was easy to understand what the City manager was getting at. Doku has scored 18 goals in 123 games since joining City from Rennes for £55m in 2023, and only once since that goal against Liverpool.
Many of the best wide forwards over the past decade – from Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah to Vinícius Júnior at Real Madrid – are synonymous with goals and Doku admits this is an area of his game he must improve if he is to catapult himself into that most elite of brackets.
“A winger needs to score,” Doku says, plainly, ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final against Southampton at Wembley. “If I have those goals then I believe that I can get there for sure, 100 per cent. You should ask defenders what they think. But I’m sure that they would say that, obviously if I score goals, this is a different conversation that we have.
“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, 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.
“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 [they’re] dribbles, every time when I do it myself. But I just want to score, I don’t know, even five tap-ins in the season. That makes a big difference.”
Doku would watch the likes of Neymar and Lionel Messi at Barcelona growing up and, before them, Ronaldinho, and was a big fan of the former Bayern Munich duo of Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben, and Chelsea’s Eden Hazard. “I just admire them and liked to watch them, but I can’t do what they do and they don’t do what I do,” he says. “I just try to do my own thing with what my qualities are.”
Doku is certainly unique. Guardiola has described him as the best winger in the world over the first five to 10 metres and Arne Slot has shared the view that he can be “unstoppable” over those distances.
The Liverpool manager had seen Doku terrorise his side in previous league outings and identified him as City’s main danger man before their FA Cup thrashing at the Etihad Stadium earlier this month.
“I appreciate those compliments, but I don’t try to use that as my fuel, my drive. 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.”
Doku does have a new competitor in the speed stakes at City, though. Defender Abdukodir Khusanov is rapid, so can he settle a debate among City fans – who of the two is faster? “Khusanov, everybody knows he’s so quick,” Doku says. “I think over 15 metres, I back myself. But over maybe 40, I think he will win.”
With Wednesday’s victory at Burnley, City – who have already won the Carabao Cup – displaced Arsenal at the top of the Premier League table on goals scored and moved a step closer to another domestic treble.
“Look, we’ve won a trophy already and there’s still two more where we have everything in our hands,” Doku says. “We’re in a good place. OK, we are out of the Champions League, but imagine we win those two trophies and you have a domestic treble?
“We’re in a good flow. We are confident and we’re hungry. We know there’s still a lot to play for and I think that’s what drives us.”