How Sadio Mane stopped Jeremy Doku joining Liverpool
- Doku set to join Premier League champions Manchester City on a five-year deal
- The Belgian international reveals how close he came to joining Liverpool
- Sadio Mane a factor in the switch to Anfield not happening
Manchester City-bound Jeremy Doku has revealed how a conversation with Sadio Mane led to a potential transfer to Liverpool falling through.
90min understands that City have agreed a fee of €65m (£55m) including add-ons with Doku's current club Rennes for the talented winger's services, and personal terms on a five-year deal have also been agreed.
Official confirmation of the move is now seemingly imminent, pending a successful medical, and ahead of the transfer some quotes have come to light regarding how close Doku has previously come to joining a Premier League club.
At just 15 years of age, prior to signing his first professional contract at Anderlecht, the Belgian attracted a huge amount of interest from Liverpool, who sent a Jurgen Klopp and a number of first-team players to try and convince Doku of making the move to Anfield.
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One first-teamer who was sent to talk to Doku was Sadio Mane, though the soon-to-be City star told
Ouest-France back in 2021 that the actual conversation they had didn't necessarily go the way it supposed to.
"I talked a lot with Mane, but we didn't really talk about football. We talked about everything," Doku 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'. 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."
Doku instead opted to stay at Anderlecht before making the move to Rennes in 2020, where he has thoroughly impressed to become a regular fixture in Belgium's senior squad.
City will perhaps expect his goal return to improve though, with Doku registering just ten goals in his 74 appearances in Ligue 1.
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