Jeremy Doku's fine season continued over the international break with another two assists for Belgium.

The Manchester City winger completed an astonishing 13 dribbles against the lowly Azerbaijan and also showed the end product to back it up with assists for Romelu Lukaku and Leandro Trossard. Despite having only joined City towards the end of the transfer window, he is already top for assists at the club with six - including four against Bournemouth.

While not too much can be taken from Azerbaijan, the sight of Doku putting the ball on a plate for Lukaku to nod in should have City excited. The big striker, well known to Blues after those high-profile misses in the Champions League final for Inter, can only help Doku's development for his club, learning how to supply the right kind of service for Erling Haaland.

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Doku's selection ahead of Jack Grealish for the match at Chelsea before the international break shows how quickly he has made a big impression with Pep Guardiola, backed to perform in a big game. As he progresses, a link-up with Haaland is an important step.

Haaland is top for goals this season at City and Doku is top for assists, yet Haaland has not scored a goal that Doku has provided for him. This will surely change going forward, and the sooner it does the better for both.

City's No.9 has a proud individual streak to continue, having scored in 41 different games for the club and failing to taste defeat in any of them. If Haaland is on the scoresheet, then City simply do not lose.

Since he joined, the main puzzle for Guardiola has been to ensure Haaland gets service for precisely this reason - when the Norwegian scores it works out extremely well for everyone. As Doku aims to strengthen his grip on a place in the team, building a productive relationship with Haaland is the easiest and most effective way to ensure that he can keep getting minutes.

The other way that the Belgian can shine is to perform in big games, and Guardiola's selection for the Liverpool game will be interesting. Doku did not excel against Chelsea with Reece James performing well against him and plenty of Chelsea teammates helping, but if Trent Alexander-Arnold pushes forward then there could be plenty of space for the summer signing to exploit.

Doku of course could have been lining up for Liverpool in this fixture if Jurgen Klopp had his way, having targeted him in 2019 before the youngster was convinced to stay at Anderlecht after their academy director got a former star to talk to him and his family.

And who do City have to thank for that intervention? Lukaku.