Jeremy Doku wanting ‘easy tap-ins’ like Sterling was no dig and could motivate Guardiola | OneFootball

It sounded like the least humble of brags.

“There is one thing,” said Jeremy Doku. “When I look at my goals, all the goals this season, I don’t see one tap-in.”

He had a point. After provisionally applying to trademark right-footed curlers from outside the area with a delightful strike against Liverpool in November, Doku has kept Arsenal honest in this title race almost by himself through such glorious finishes against Everton and Brentford.

His goal in transition against Chelsea in April was the exception in a sea of the spectacular.

But Doku wasn’t done.

“And when I look at, for example, Sterling in his seasons here, all the tap-ins that he scored – at least five, six, seven a season.”

Five, six, seven a season, Jeremy? Five, six, seven? That’s insane.

And also completely fair. Ghosting in at the back post to convert from a couple of yards accounted for roughly 100 per cent [subs please check] of Sterling’s 131 Manchester City goals. Some might have called it stat-padding; others knew it provided the foundations to win 10 trophies in seven years.

Doku’s words were a show of respect, of a desire to supplement his own “top goals” with the “easy tap-ins” which combined Sterling’s instincts, movement, awareness, positional sense, intelligence and anticipation with the sort of Guardiola-administered relentless training-ground repetition a layman ought not to try and comprehend.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Doku added, “but I want to score also those goals where I just tap-in, second post, run in and tap-in, and it just adds more goals to my account. That’s really the thing that I need to work on.”

It was, of course, perceived by some as a sign of insolence, a needless dig at a club legend. The opposite was true: Sterling is still held as the gold standard of wide forwards at Manchester City, even years after his exit.

Doku’s desperation to emulate him is healthy and refreshing; Guardiola might relish the opportunity to guide another brilliant player on that journey again.

“Normally for wingers to score goals is not easy because they tend to be further away from the goals,” the Manchester City manager said years ago. “It is easier for strikers, but Sterling moves from side to side and has an incredible sense of getting into the box with the right tempo and score when the ball is coming from the opposite side.

That Doku views the trait with envy rather than scorn, even while scoring goals of absurd quality, must move and motivate Guardiola.

Sterling scored seven goals in his first season under the Spaniard before exploding into an elite-level poacher. Doku has some work to do – this is his best scoring season with five – but cannot ask for a better blueprint.