Doku could be come central figure for Pep

PEP Guardiola has spent large chunks of his career defying expectations.

- SIMON BAJKOWSKI

An untested rookie manager was not supposed to do what he did at Barcelona, and then of course the idea of him taking his style of foot-ball and making a success of it in a country with its own proud footballing heritage in Germany was challenged. After breaking records in the Bundesliga, the infamous cold, rainy night in Stoke was seen by some as a trial too far for the Catalan.

As a pundit in a national newspaper wrote during Guardiola's first year at Manchester City: "If he thinks he's going to turn up and out-play everybody in the Premier League, and that teams like Watford, Leicester, Bournemouth, Southampton and Crystal Palace are going to let his Manchester City side have the ball for 90 per cent of the time and pass pretty patterns around them so they can get a result, then he is absolutely deluded.