Jeremy Doku needed one game back with Belgium to remind everyone what he can do. He set up one goal and started the move for the winner in a 2-1 win over Türkiye, and his team-mate Charles De Ketelaere called him “one of the strongest footballers in the world” in one-on-one situations.
It was Doku’s first international appearance since the World Cup, after he missed four games, and he made it count. The question for Manchester City is simple: why has that player turned up so rarely in sky blue this season?
Doku has one goal and one assist in ten games in all competitions for City. Those numbers are well short of what a winger with his talent should be producing, especially in a side that has lost three league games in a row.
What did Doku do against Türkiye?
Belgium were behind in Izmir when Doku went to work. He supplied the assist for Kevin De Bruyne, his old City team-mate now at Napoli, to level the scores, and then took on his man to start the move that ended with De Ketelaere’s winner.
De Ketelaere was asked about him afterwards and did not hold back. Speaking to the Belgian broadcaster Sporza, he said: “We know how good he is. And we know how important it is for a team to have players who can take on and beat opponents. It creates space for the others. In one-on-one situations, he is one of the strongest footballers in the world.”
That last line is the key to the whole debate. Nobody doubts Doku can beat a full-back. The issue at City has always been what comes after.
Why hasn’t it clicked for Doku at City?
The dribbling numbers are there. Early in the season Doku led the Premier League for dribbles won, and when he gets the ball wide and isolated, he still gets past people. But beating a man and creating a chance are two different things, and at City the end product has been missing: the final ball comes too late, or the shot is taken from a poor angle, or he goes past one defender and runs into a second.
Part of that is the team around him. Enzo Maresca has changed his side a lot, and when City struggle to control games, as they did at the City Ground, their wingers spend more time defending and less time in the final third. Doku himself admitted after the 3-1 defeat at Nottingham Forest that teams have found a formula to beat City by sitting deep and breaking quickly.
Why City need him now
The timing matters. Antoine Semenyo is out until December with a leg injury, so Doku is one of the few players in the squad who can open a packed defence on his own. Maresca has also said openly that City cannot rely only on Erling Haaland for goals. Someone has to share the load, and a winger who beats defenders for fun is the obvious candidate.
Belgium’s coach Mark van Bommel described getting him back as a luxury. City need to treat him that way too: give him the ball early, give him a full-back running outside him, and let him attack.
Verdict: Doku’s Belgium night can be the turning point
One good international performance does not fix a season, and Doku has had bright nights before that did not last. But confidence matters for a player whose game is built on taking risks, and Thursday showed he has not lost the thing that makes him special.
Belgium face Italy on Sunday, and then it is back to Manchester with City needing a response after their worst run of the season. If Doku brings his Belgium form with him, City have a match-winner they have barely used. If he doesn’t, the questions about his place under Maresca will only get louder. You can see how the whole side has rated so far in our player ratings from the Forest defeat.
