Jeremy Doku’s poor showings for Belgium at Euro 2024 have been blamed on the playstyles implemented on him at Manchester City by Pep Guardiola.
Belgium have been less than convincing during their opening three matches in Germany and narrowly avoided an embarrassing exit after finishing second in Group E, level on points with Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine.
Drawing 0-0 in Cologne on Wednesday, Domenico Tedesco’s men failed to threaten Ukraine’s stern resistance and could have even fallen behind late on, if not for two smart stops from goalkeeper Koen Casteels.
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Addressing Belgium’s shortcomings in front of goal so far at Euro 2024, both Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer agreed in their post-match analysis of the encounter that Doku’s inability to find an end product is severely halting Belgium’s chances.
“I think that is him though, great skills, brilliant one v one, tricks galore, can go either way, but when you are looking for him to give you that end product too many times, there is no enough end product,” began Shearer via BBC.
“I would imagine he is very frustrating to play with, [he] can produce moments of brilliance, no doubt about that, we have seen it, but not often enough.”
“I think what we are seeing here not just with Belgium but with England and Holland a lot of times, this system which everyone seems to be playing, there are no crosses from out wide,” added Rooney, agreeing with Shearer’s remarks regarding the 22-year-old.
“He always goes into the box and the game for me has got a lot more positional, they always want to score the perfect goal and I think that is Pep’s [Guardiola] fault, Pep almost brought that in. He has mastered but everyone else has struggled to create great chances.”
There were also ugly scenes following the final whistle at the MHPArena, with fellow City team-mate of Doku, Kevin De Bruyne, seemingly instructing Belgium’s players not to applaud their travelling fans, after boos and negative chants rung around the stadium.
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