The Doku Effect: How a Dribbler is Rewriting Pep Guardiola's Tactical Playbook at Manchester City

For the best part of 1,000 matches in management, Pep Guardiola has coached football according to remarkably similar principles.

Guardiola's positional play, or juego de posicion, divides the pitch into horizontal and vertical sections. The general rule is that no more than three players should occupy the same horizontal band, and no more than two should share the same vertical column. If you are Bernardo Silva, your decision about where to position yourself works like entering a number in Sudoku. You scan the row. You scan the column. If the space is occupied, you move elsewhere. If not, that is your zone.

This framework has underpinned everything Guardiola has built since Barcelona. It is why his teams are fluid yet never shapeless. It is why he insists formations are secondary to the positional principles beneath them. It is why, when two number eights play in his 4-3-3, they roam freely but are never next to each other. The structure is invisible to most viewers, but it governs everything.

And now, in the most fascinating tactical subplot of the 2025-26 season, Guardiola appears to be tearing up his own rulebook. The catalyst is a 22-year-old Belgian who runs at people for a living.

The Guardiola Winger: A History of Control

To understand why Jeremy Doku represents such a departure, you need to understand what Guardiola has historically demanded from his wide players.

At Barcelona, his wingers were Lionel Messi and David Villa, later joined by Pedro and Alexis Sanchez. These were not touchline-hugging dribblers. They were goal threats who moved inside, interchanged with the midfield and played intricate combination football in tight spaces. Messi's evolution from a traditional right winger into a false nine was the defining tactical innovation of Guardiola's early career, and it set the template: wide players in Guardiola's system are creators and combiners first, dribblers second.

At Bayern Munich, the same principles applied. Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery were world-class dribblers, certainly, but Guardiola used them within a structured framework that prioritised positional discipline over individual expression. Thomas Muller, the ultimate intelligent off-ball mover, was arguably more representative of the Guardiola wide player than either Robben or Ribery.

At Manchester City, the pattern was even more pronounced. The wingers who defined the Guardiola era at the Etihad were not explosive one-on-one merchants. They were technically gifted players who prioritised possession retention, combination play and intelligent movement over raw dribbling.

Bernardo Silva, the player Guardiola has publicly called "one of the best I have ever seen in my life," is the quintessential Guardiola wide player. His dribbling success rate is high, but his dribble volume is modest. He carries the ball with purpose, not spectacle. He finds pockets of space between the lines, receives on the half-turn and plays quick, short passes that keep the machine ticking. He never loses the ball cheaply. He rarely attempts to beat a man one-on-one when a safer option exists.

Riyad Mahrez was the most "traditional" winger of the Guardiola era at City. He would cut inside from the right and shoot with his left foot, and he could beat a defender when isolated. But Mahrez's game was built around elegance, timing and a devastating first touch rather than high-volume, high-risk dribbling. He completed around 2.5 successful dribbles per 90 minutes in the Premier League, a respectable but not extraordinary figure.

Raheem Sterling offered pace and direct running but evolved under Guardiola into a player who scored goals through intelligent movement rather than beating defenders. His value was in his positioning, his off-the-ball runs and his willingness to find the back post. Jack Grealish, signed for £100 million, arrived as arguably the most prolific dribbler in the Premier League but was effectively reprogrammed under Guardiola to prioritise ball retention and positional discipline over individual expression.

The message was consistent across nearly a decade at City: wide players must serve the system. They must maintain spacing. They must keep possession. They must be predictable in their positioning so that teammates know where they are. Individual brilliance is welcome, but only within the framework.

Leroy Sane was perhaps the one exception, a genuinely explosive winger whose pace and directness made him devastatingly effective. Sane completed over three successful dribbles per 90 and was comfortable taking risks that other Guardiola wingers would not. But Sane's relationship with Guardiola was often strained, and his departure to Bayern Munich in 2020 felt, in part, like a philosophical disagreement that could not be resolved.

Enter Doku: The Anti-Guardiola Winger

Jeremy Doku is nothing like any of these players.

When City signed him from Rennes for £55.5 million in the summer of 2023, the scouting logic was clear: Doku was young, explosive and Belgian, and his dribbling ability was elite. But the fit with Guardiola's system was always the question. Could the most instinctive, risk-taking, beat-your-man winger in European football thrive in a framework built on control, spacing and positional discipline?

In his first season, the answer was mixed. Doku showed flashes of brilliance, particularly in his early appearances when he tormented Kyle Walker in a pre-season friendly and made the Premier League sit up with explosive cameos. But he also lost the ball frequently, struggled with his end product and was in and out of the side. Guardiola appeared to be trying to coach the wildness out of him, to make him more Bernardo and less Sane. The results were patchy.

In his second season (2024-25), Doku began to find a more productive balance, finishing with 8 goals and 11 assists across all competitions. Crucially, he led the Premier League in progressive carries, duels won and completed dribbles per 90 minutes, a category in which he led all players across Europe's top five leagues. He was not being reprogrammed. He was being unleashed.

But the real breakthrough has come this season, and it has less to do with Doku's individual development than with a fundamental shift in how Guardiola is using him, and what that means for the tactical architecture of the entire team.

The Tactical Shift: From Touchline to Everywhere

In City's recent matches, Guardiola's positional rules have gone out of the window. Against Bournemouth, in a comfortable 3-1 win, City's front six players were clustered in narrow central positions between the lines. Three players occupied tight spaces in the centre of the pitch, tasked with dragging Bournemouth's defenders forward and creating running lanes for Erling Haaland.

For Haaland's opener, the entire front six were close together in the middle of the pitch, something you would never normally see in a Guardiola side. They combined in tight spaces: Nico Gonzalez chipped the ball, Rayan Cherki headed it on, and Haaland was released in behind to score. For the second goal, the same pattern: all five midfielders central, a straight forward pass, a brief Foden touch, another Cherki ball in behind, another Haaland goal.

The curious thing was that one of those central midfielders was Doku. The most winger-ish winger in the Premier League was positioned on the edge of the centre circle, operating as part of an effective midfield five, with Liverpool's Alexis Mac Allister pointing to him, unable to jump forward because of the other central midfielders he was already tracking.

But then Doku would suddenly appear out wide. Then back inside. Then making a diagonal run behind the right-back. He was not really drifting inside, as inverted wingers do. He was more accurately a "half-winger," oscillating between central and wide positions with a freedom that felt fundamentally different from the structured rotations Guardiola's wide players have historically performed.

Against Liverpool, the freedom was extraordinary. Doku scored, won 10-plus duels, completed 7-plus dribbles, created 3-plus chances and registered 3-plus shots on target. According to Opta, he was the first player to achieve that statistical combination in a Premier League match since Eden Hazard for Chelsea against West Ham in April 2019. The comparison to Hazard is telling: Hazard was the Premier League's last truly elite hybrid winger, equally dangerous from the flank and from inside positions, equally effective dribbling in tight spaces and in open field.

Even Doku's goal came from an inside position rather than the touchline. He received from Nico O'Reilly, positioned between the lines rather than hugging the wing, and curled home.

Why Doku is Different: Five Yards, Not Fifty

The key insight is about the nature of Doku's speed. He is quick, certainly. But his top speed over distance is not what makes him special. What makes him special is his acceleration over five yards: the burst from standing, the explosive first step, the ability to go right-left-right past two defenders in a phone box.

This is a different kind of speed from the traditional winger's. Classic touchline wingers, the Theo Walcotts and Adama Traores of the world, need open space to be effective. Their value is in racing past a full-back down the channel, reaching the byline, delivering a cross. They need the corridor.

Doku does not need the corridor. His short-space acceleration and close control mean he is actually more dangerous in congested areas than in open space. He can receive the ball in the half-space with three defenders around him and still find a way through. His feet are so quick and his balance so low that he creates chaos in precisely the kind of tight central zones where traditional wingers would be neutralised.

Guardiola himself made the comparison after Doku's performance against Aston Villa, calling him "the best player in the world in the first few meters" and "unstoppable in the final third." But the more revealing question is whether Guardiola has ever had a player like this. The answer takes you back to Camp Nou.

Has Guardiola had a better player at suddenly going right-left-right past two defenders since Andres Iniesta? The comparison sounds provocative, but consider the skill set: close control at speed, balance, the ability to manipulate defenders in tight spaces, the capacity to play centrally and wide, the knack for making the pitch feel bigger through individual quality. Doku's next pass is less reliable than Iniesta's was. But the physical attributes, the burst, the low centre of gravity, the ability to eliminate multiple defenders in sequence, are remarkably similar.

What This Means for Guardiola's System

The significance of Doku's role extends far beyond one player. It represents a potentially fundamental shift in how Guardiola thinks about wide play, and perhaps about positional play itself.

For the past decade, Guardiola has coached his teams to beat opponents through collective movement, positional superiority and passing combinations. The individual dribble was a supplementary tool, not a primary weapon. His teams created space through movement off the ball, not through one player beating another on it.

Doku challenges that logic. When he receives the ball in a central position and beats two defenders, he does not just create an advantage for himself. He drags defensive attention inward, opening space on the flanks. He forces central midfielders to cover, creating gaps for other attackers. He generates the kind of chaos that structured positional play cannot, because positional play, by definition, is about order.

The arrival of Haaland had already shifted City's tactical identity. With a pure number nine who does not drop deep to combine, Guardiola needed to find new ways to create space in behind. Haaland's presence demanded verticality in a system that had been built on horizontal control. Doku's emergence as a central-wide hybrid provides the missing piece: a player who can receive between the lines, beat a defender, and either play Haaland through or create chaos that opens the lane for a teammate to do so.

Savinho's presence on the opposite flank adds another dimension. Like Doku, Savinho is a more "maverick" winger than City have typically employed, comfortable taking risks and beating defenders one-on-one. Together, they represent a shift towards line-breaking, chaos-creating wide play that would have been unthinkable in the Bernardo-Mahrez-Grealish era.

The Coaching Lesson: Systems Must Serve Players, Not the Other Way Around

For coaches at every level, the Doku story carries a profound lesson about the relationship between tactical systems and individual talent.

Guardiola could have continued trying to coach Doku into a conventional Guardiola winger: disciplined in his positioning, conservative with the ball, subordinate to the collective. Many coaches would have done exactly that, particularly coaches who have spent 1,000 matches building a specific tactical identity. The instinct to protect the system, to demand that players conform to it, is powerful.

Instead, Guardiola did something more difficult and more impressive. He recognised that Doku's unique qualities required a different approach and adapted his system to unlock them. He moved Doku inside. He gave him freedom to roam. He accepted the additional risk of ball losses in exchange for the chaos and space creation that Doku's dribbling generates.

This is not the abandonment of positional play. The underlying principles still exist. But it is an acknowledgement that the best systems are not rigid frameworks to be imposed on players. They are living structures that evolve in response to the qualities of the individuals within them.

Guardiola has done this throughout his career. He invented the false nine for Messi. He moved Lahm into midfield at Bayern. He pushed Stones into the centre of the pitch at City. He inverted full-backs before anyone else in England. Each innovation came from recognising that a player's unique qualities demanded a systemic adjustment.

Doku is the latest, and in some ways the most radical, of these adjustments. Because while the false nine and the inverted full-back were refinements of positional play, Doku's role represents something closer to a challenge to its foundational principles. You cannot have strict positional rules when one of your most important players is, by design, impossible to predict.

The message for coaches is clear: the best tactical frameworks are not prisons. They are platforms. And the willingness to adapt your system for an exceptional individual, rather than forcing that individual into your system, is not a compromise. It is the highest expression of coaching intelligence.

Whether this tactical experiment endures remains to be seen. Guardiola has always been willing to iterate, to try something for a few matches and then move on. But if Doku continues to perform as he has in recent weeks, do not be surprised if the positional play that has defined Guardiola's career gives way to something messier, more chaotic and potentially more exciting. After 1,000 games, even the greatest tactical mind in football is still evolving.