Star of the 2015-16 season with Leicester City, as the minnows lifted the Premier League title, Riyad Mahrez’s start to this campaign has been rather more low-key.
Scoring just four goals in 16 appearances in all competitions (three of which have been in the Champions League), the Algerian winger, and the team as a whole, is yet to recapture last season’s form.
Rejecting alleged advances from Arsenal over the summer, the winger took the decision to stay in Leicester for at least one more year, owing them that much, especially with Champions League football on the cards.
His success has made him a superstar all around the world, and one of his national teammates, Sofiane Feghouli, now contracted to West Ham, reckons his story should be captured for the big screen, not Vardy’s.
He said: “His story could be a Hollywood film (smiles). It really is the suburb dream: Sarcelles, he plays near his house, in the regional divisions, on the right, on the left and he ends up at the top, best player in England. Hats off! His strength is that he’s unconscious, he just loves the ball.
“At training, he plays, shoots all the time, even when he’s tired, he wants to continue. There aren’t 50,000 people with that road. Riyad, he helped me choose. He opened the doors of Premier League football to North African players. We weren’t many in England.”
Voted PFA Players’ Player of the Year and the PFA Fans’ Player of the Year, as well as earning a spot on the Premier League PFA Team of the Year, the Leicester star has won it all in the league.
As things stand, with Leicester currently 14th in the table, this might be Mahrez’s last season with Claudio Ranieri’s side, but regardless of what happens this season, if he does move, he’ll have fully deserved it.
