Leicester City star Riyad Mahrez has revealed that he would be considering his future in the summer, amidst interest from the likes of Tottenham. The Algerian has struggled for form this season but still remains a talented player that he is. It now looks like he isn’t closing the door for an exit from the King Power stadium.
Mahrez famously guided Leicester City to a remarkable title win last season where he made 39 appearances and scored 18 goals. He also grabbed 10 assists in what was an unbelievable season for Mahrez and the Foxes. However, this season, he hasn’t been anywhere near to the player that he was last season and has underperformed.
He has made 45 appearances this season and has 10 goals and 7 assists to his name. Somehow, Leicester have survived the drop after they sacked Claudio Ranieri.
The £25.5m rated attacker was linked with a move to Tottenham previously as per reports from The Times (Subscription required) and with the player now stating that he is looking to play Champions League football, it could be possible for Pochettino to convince the winger to join the Lilywhites. Though the Premier League title is gone, Tottenham are set to finish 2nd in the table, which guarantees Champions League football for next season.
Pochettino will be keen on improving Spurs’ performance in Europe as the team crashed out of the competition in the group stages this time around.
Tottenham have lacked some quality depth in wide areas as Moussa Sissoko has failed miserably. However, Mahrez would be a massive improvement on Sissoko and Pochettino shouldn’t think twice before spending on the Algerian attacker.
Mahrez said in an interview with Sky Sports,
“It was a weird summer for me because everyone was asking, ‘Is he going here or there?’. At first I wanted to go. When you do a season like I did, you start thinking, ‘You have to take this train, maybe it won’t come again’. There are big clubs, you don’t know what’s going to happen. Are they going to come back for you in two seasons or three seasons? You don’t know.”
“Then you have some people around you who have their opinion, your family as well. In the end, though every person has a choice and [in the end] I was thinking I prefer to stay and I don’t regret it. It was a good choice.”
There has been speculation going on and Mahrez says that he isn’t ready to think about them now. He rather wants to stay focused on Leicester City for now and leave the other things to the summer break. He added:
“I’m not really thinking about this summer yet, let’s finish this season and we’ll see,” is his answer when I ask him what he wants to do. There’s still three games to go, still some good games to play. I don’t want to put something in my head. At the moment I’m in Leicester, I’m happy and we’ll see.”
Riyad Mahrez would be a really good addition for Tottenham and would add some great strength to the squad, if not to the playing XI.
Do you think we should buy Riyad Mahrez?
Of course, he is a true quality player who would be able to share the creative killer pass burden with Eriksen. Nevertheless it is far more important to keep all our first 11 (or 14) players and pay them what they can earn at other clubs if necessary. If it means we cannot buy new ones, so be it.