Despite convincing Manchester City to spend over £60m to acquire Riyad Mahrez in the summer, Pep Guardiola’s has seemed very reluctant to use the Algeria international of late.
Starting his last game in the Premier League back on December 30th, the 27-year-old has largely been used in the cups, starting and finish all four ties against Rotherham, Burnley and the double header against Burton Albion.
In the league, he’s had to make do with two minutes against Arsenal and a hefty 22 against Chelsea towards the back end of their 6-0 rout.
This lack of game time has led to some mild speculation about the former Leicester star’s future at the Etihad, and we were a bit surprised to see a link with Napoli on an Algerian website on Friday.
With no source, we did a bit of digging to find out it originated in Italy thanks to Calciomercato.it, who believe he’s on the list of players Carlo Ancelotti would like his club to try and sign in the summer.
On there are also Hirving Lozano, James Rodriguez, Marquinhos, Timo Werner and Nikola Milenkovic, making some far more attainable than others.
Unless something is completely broken between Guardiola and Mahrez, we can’t see Manchester City parting ways with their investment so soon, and even if they did, it would be very costly, forcing Napoli to comfortably break their record expenditure for a signing (£35m for Higuain in 2013).
It seems like a long shot for now.
