Then again, Doku had never been a player whose goals and assists made you sit up and take notice. In his best season with Rennes he only managed six goals and two assists in Ligue 1, something which Guardiola reminded everyone of on Sunday.
"I think he will never be a top scorer, to be honest," the coach said. "But he’s demanding himself to be better, he listens, and has special attributes of dribbling. He was aggressive with and without the ball. We tried to help him and he played an outstanding game."
Guardiola has not always been so effusive about Doku. After a 4-0 thrashing of Brighton in the run-in towards winning the title in 2024, he gave the winger a public dressing down for giving the ball away a couple of times after coming off the bench. Last season, meanwhile, Guardiola criticised Doku's performance against United at Old Trafford, and it was only towards the end of the campaign, after a good display in a win at Everton, that the coach admitted he had been "unfair" on the winger by not playing him more.
Indeed, Doku was at the risk of being phased out of the team as Guardiola preferred to flood the central midfield and look to full-backs Nico O'Reilly and Matheus Nunes to provide width. Now, though, he is one of the first names on the team sheet, playing in 16 of City's 17 games in all competitions this term, starting 11 of them, including all four Champions League fixtures.