Rennes coach Julian Stephan has admitted that Jeremy Doku ‘reminds me of Sadio Mane’ after beating Liverpool to the £23 million Belgium international, speaking to Walfoot.
It’s not just Stephan who sees the similarities between the former Anderlecht youngster and a certain Senegalese superstar.
Speaking to Het Nieuwsblad last year, Doku’s father admitted that Jurgen Klopp was desperate to bring the teenage speed-machine to Anfield back in 2018. What’s more, the Liverpool boss felt that Doku could be the ‘potential successor to Sadio Mane’.
Direct, quick and blessed with an eye for goal, you can see why Klopp would come to such a conclusion.
And though Doku has yet to really set the world alight since swapping Belgium for Brittany in October, Stephan too believes the 18-year-old has a few things in common Liverpool’s number ten.
“I don’t like the game of comparisons but he reminds me of Sadio Mane when he was at Metz,” Stephan explains.
“He is only 18 years old and he still has a significant margin of improvement in the final third. He is a player with great potential. He is hardworking and applies himself.
“We all see him working to improve.
“You have to have patience with an 18-year-old player who is explosive, who dribbles. If he was already a finished product, in terms of passes and decision-making, he would already be at a top club European.
“We have confidence in him.”
So do Liverpool, it seems.
Doku claimed a few months back that the Premier League champions made another failed attempt to lure him to Merseyside in the summer of 2020, adding that it was ‘too soon’ to join forces with one of Europe’s bonafide superclubs (Het Nieuwsblad).
With the original Mane still very much in his prime, Doku probably made the right call. At just 18, he has plenty of time on his side after all.
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