ETIHAD STADIUM, MANCHESTER — As Pep Guardiola surveyed an unfolding job well done on his 1,000th game in football management, a familiar scene played out on the touchline.
In the 74th minute of Manchester City's 3-0 win over Liverpool, man of the match Jeremy Doku made way to a standing ovation.
Belgium winger Doku terrorised the Liverpool defence throughout the contest, with right-back Conor Bradley enduring a very different 90 minutes to those he enjoyed in midweek when shackling Real Madrid star Vinicius Junior.
Doku proved to be a different proposition entirely to the 2024 Ballon d'Or runner-up, and he capped a superb showing by firing home from outside the area after the hour. The result put City second, four points behind leaders Arsenal after 11 games.
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When he made way for Omar Marmoush a little over 10 minutes later, Guardiola embraced the 23-year-old before engaging him in an animated and fairly one-way conversation.
"We were talking during the training session sometimes about how my body position is when I shoot and we were just talking about after I scored," he explained. "So it was a quick joke.
"It's difficult to explain [Guardiola's advice], just that I have to put my body above the ball when I shoot so the ball doesn't…so I can put more power, something like that."
Body position is one of Guardiola's footballing obsessions, from holding midfielders to attackers. Early in his City reign, footage of him manhandling Raheem Sterling on the training ground went viral.
Although never a natural finisher, Sterling racked up enough goals to be the third-highest individual goalscorer under Guardiola after Lionel Messi and Sergio Aguero with 120 when he left City in 2022.
While praising his winger's performance after the match, Guardiola said Doku, "will never be a top, top scorer if I'm honest". That being said, there is so much room for improvement. The Liverpool screamer was Doku's first in the Premier League this season, while he has scored three in each of his previous two league campaigns.
"No, I don’t do that [have a target for goals and assists], because I think those come from themselves," Doku said.
"I just work to have more of that, but I’m not a player that’s going to look after a game and say, ‘You didn’t score, you didn’t assist, you had a bad game’. I’m not that type of player. A bad game is for me if I don’t touch the ball, if I’m not effective or if I lose a lot of balls; that’s a bad game.
"If I didn’t score today, would I have said this is a bad game? No, I would have said this is a good game. That’s how I am and how I’m going to be."
MORE: Man City vs. Liverpool as it happened
Part of Doku's effectiveness in recent weeks has been down to a changing role in Guardiola's new-look City configuration. Having spent most of his first two years in Manchester as a touchline-hugging winger, the former Rennes player has been given license to roam from flank to flank. He can also be seen darting in-field to link with playmakers and kindred spirits Phil Foden and Rayan Cherki, along with getting close to Erling Haaland at centre-forward.
"If I get freedom, I'm not going to say no. Of course, I prefer that," he said. "Getting inside, getting outside, go where the ball is. It makes it unpredictable for the opponents so I like it.
"The manager likes that we [Doku, Foden and Cherki] all stay close to each other. All those short passes work well, we have a lot of street in us so that works."
After struggling during the opening weeks of the season, City and Doku are both shaping up pretty well.