Man City sign Jeremy Doku: Sadio Mane stopped him joining Liverpool five years ago | OneFootball

Highlights

Play Video

Jeremy Doku is on the verge of becoming a Manchester City player, with the Premier League champions closing in on a deal to sign the youngster for around £55m.

The Belgian has been a stand-out player for Rennes in Ligue 1 for the last 12 months and has done enough to catch the attention of Pep Guardiola and his side.

At 21 years old, he could be about to join the Premier League, a feat he had the chance to do five years ago when Liverpool were interested in the prospect back in 2018 and tried to sign him to a contract.

Despite making a big play for the winger, he decided against moving to Anfield, and it seems former Reds star Sadio Mane may have been the catalyst for that decision.

How did Sadio Mane prevent Jeremy Doku's move to Liverpool?

When Liverpool first decided they were interested in Doku, they pretty much rolled out the red carpet for the star, who was just 15 years old at the time. Jurgen Klopp himself met with the Belgian, before he was taken on a tour around Anfield to try and sway him into joining the side.

He was also introduced to Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard, as well as several first-team players at the time, including Simon Mignolet, a fellow Belgian, Gini Wijnaldum and, maybe unfortunately in hindsight, Mane.

Speaking to Ouest-France, Doku revealed how his interaction with the Senegalese star went, and how it eventually convinced him not to join the team.

"I talked a lot with Mane, but we didn't really talk about football. We talked about everything," he said.

"He told me that I was young, that I still had time… he wasn't trying to convince me or to say to me 'come here, you will succeed'."

Doku went on to reveal how the conversation deterred him from making the move to Merseyside, saying: "So I preferred to be careful. I knew what my trajectory had to be. I knew what route I needed to take, and I knew at that moment I needed to stay at Anderlecht."

It seems he likely made the right decision, with the star signing a pro contract at Anderlecht once he turned 16 years of age, and he spent one year among the club's first team before he joined Rennes in 2020. Although, with Mane having left Liverpool last summer, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that the 21-year-old could have been the man to replace him in that Reds' side.

Fellow Anderlecht alumni Romelu Lukaku also advised him against leaving the club

While his conversation with Mane had seemingly helped Doku make up his mind about staying at Anderlecht, fellow Belgian star Lukaku also reached out and advised him to stay at the side for the time being.

Speaking to Belgian publication, Nieuwsblad, via the Express, he said: "He advised me to stay, but from the beginning, my goal was to stay. At least if Anderlecht was willing to make an effort, which they eventually did.

Lukaku himself had left Anderlecht as a youngster when Chelsea came calling and knew first-hand how difficult it can be as a young talent to find your feet at a club of that magnitude, so his advice will surely have held a lot of weight for Doku.

But he stressed that while he did listen to it, he ultimately came to the decision to stay at the club on his own accord, saying: "I did listen to Romelu’s advice, but I make decisions about my future myself."

What will Jeremy Doku bring to Manchester City?

A move to Liverpool would have cost Klopp's side around £500,000, according to the Mirror, just less than 1% of what he could potentially be about to join Man City for.

With the departure of Riyad Mahrez this summer, the Premier League champions have been on the look out for his replacement throughout the transfer window, and Doku is pretty much the perfect option to fill the Algerian's boots.

Known as the 'Belgian Flash' for a reason, the 21-year-old possesses unfathomable pace and has the ability to beat just about anyone in a foot race on the football pitch. His electrifying speed enables him to burst up and down the flanks with such impact, that it's hard to imagine he'd be anything other than a major success at the Premier League champions.

He is also an exceptional dribbler, dancing past defenders repeatedly with ease and his exploits on the pitch have earned praise from several huge names within football.

Klopp, who was clearly interested in the star, once likened him to Mane, ironically, and had plans for him to replace the forward eventually at Anfield. Former Arsenal captain and one of the Premier League's greatest ever players, Thierry Henry, called Doku "extraordinary", while former Man City man Samir Nasri, who played with him at Anderlecht briefly, predicted he would go on to become one of the top 20 players in the world.

There were initially doubts about the star's ability to stay fit and healthy after an injury-plagued year in 2021/22 saw him limited to just 18 appearances, but he bounced back last year, making 35 in all competitions for Rennes and scoring seven goals for his troubles.

In the first two games of the season this year, he's already found the back of the net on one occasion and his goal-scoring numbers will only continue to grow as the seasons go by, and he progresses towards his prime.

What will particularly make him useful to Guardiola and his City side, though, is his ability to be deployed on either wing and his ability to play with either one of his feet.

It's that flexibility that makes him perfect for the club, with Guardiola known for his tinkering tactically and his tendency to switch players around the pitch and move positions frequently.

While £55m may seem like a lot for a 21-year-old who's only ever played in Belgium and Ligue 1, it's a drop in the ocean compared to what some youngsters go for these days, and Doku is a hell of a lot more talented than some of those guys.