Riyad Mahrez is stuck at Leicester City until the end of the season at least.
A week ago, that wouldn’t have seemed such a bad thing. Leicester were flying and Mahrez was in his best form since the Foxes won the Premier League in 2016. The Algerian forward has eight goals and seven assists for far this season, and is arguably the best Premier League player outside of the top six.
However, Leicester now face a fight to get Mahrez focused again.
The 26-year-old handed in a transfer request amid interest from Manchester City. The Premier League leaders made four bids for Mahrez, the last of which was worth £65m and included a City player as part of the deal. Leicester rejected each offer, as they reportedly wanted a fee closer to £95m. The club’s owners are said to have raised their valuation following Philippe Coutinho’s £142m transfer to Barcelona and Virgil van Dijk’s £75m transfer to Liverpool.
When news broke on Wednesday afternoon of City’s final offer, the identity of the player offered to Leicester was unknown. But BBC reporter Simon Stone revealed on Friday morning that Patrick Roberts, who is currently on loan with Celtic, was offered to the Foxes.
Re Mahrez. The '£95m total package' included Patrick Roberts, who Leicester were keen on. In the end they would have accepted £80m but this was still more than @ManCity were prepared to pay.
— Simon Stone (@sistoney67) February 2, 2018
Roberts joined City from Fulham for £12m in July 2015, but has only played three times for the club. The 20-year-old has been on loan at Celtic since January 2016, and has scored 18 goals in 70 games for the Scottish champions, helping them win two league titles.
He even scored against his parent club in the Champions League last season. Leicester were interested in signing Roberts, but City weren’t prepared to pay £80m for Mahrez, which was the minimum Leicester would have accepted.
Mahrez is unhappy to have missed out on a move to Pep Guardiola’s side, and reportedly isn’t taking it well. According to Sky Sports, he skipped training on Thursday and Friday, and is said to be “very depressed” that the transfer to City broke down. He wasn’t part of the squad for Leicester’s 2-1 defeat to Everton on Wednesday night, and isn’t expected to play any part of their game against Swansea on Saturday.
Interestingly, Mahrez recently appointed Kia Joorabchian as his agent. He is also Coutinho’s agent, and represented Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez in the past. Joorabchian helped engineer Coutinho’s transfer to Barcelona, so don’t be surprised if he finds a way to get Mahrez a move this summer.
