Grealish isn’t very good at 1v1 dribbles though. He doesn’t have the burst of pace or skills for that in small spaces. Only with lots of space on the counter but City play against parked busses all the time. For that you need a dribbler who is very high level in 1v1s in small spaces, and no one in the world is better at that than Doku. So Pep uses Grealish in that advanced wing position to keep the ball and attract multiple defenders to create space behind those players.
![[Data foot] players who have completed the most dribbles this season in the UCL](https://alien.top/pictrs/image/247fa8dd-6a00-4bfe-a8cf-6f00c4d7032c.webp){kind=link}
Pep really turned Grealish into a pass back merchant and then signed Doku and let him do what Grealish was actually good at 😭
Grealish isn’t very good at 1v1 dribbles though. He doesn’t have the burst of pace or skills for that in small spaces. Only with lots of space on the counter but City play against parked busses all the time. For that you need a dribbler who is very high level in 1v1s in small spaces, and no one in the world is better at that than Doku. So Pep uses Grealish in that advanced wing position to keep the ball and attract multiple defenders to create space behind those players.