Riyad Mahrez. One of City’s best ever players. Should he stay or go?

[Mark 'expert' Lawrenson]

5 minutes ago, SheppyFox said:

We should be terrified at the prospect of the next batch of crap 70m can get us  

You’re not wrong there, it’s frightening the amount of money we’ve spent and most of it has been wasted. 

[KingsX]

Riyad has answered this question for us.  He wants to be at a CL-level club and surrounded by players who will maximize his talent, which for him is anywhere but LCFC. 

 

The club have been correct in refusing to sell given the amount and timing of offers to date.  However,

  - At this point, he is widely recognized as one of the very best offensive players in the Prem.  I’ve seen him on “top five” lists.  His/Our crap 16/17 season will no longer kill his value.

  - There’s two years left on his contract, which is the point at which clubs need to look at selling players who will not re-sign.

 

Riyad has done things very adverse to the club, yet maintained his status as its most productive player.  So I will call it a wash, leave my value judgment out, and state the obvious.  Rudkin should be working his ass off as we speak, to line up multiple suitors and get the best possible offer this summer, and to identify excellent attacking talent we can control and develop when we invest the proceeds.

[Beechey]

20 minutes ago, SheppyFox said:

We should be terrified at the prospect of the next batch of crap 70m can get us  

You can't be telling me that Troy Deeney is not worth £70m?! My friend, let me introduce you to Mr Rudkin.

[Ted Maul]

I think we should be looking to get a replacement in before we sell- any club knowing that we have £70m burning a hole in our pocket will want as large a share of that as possible.

 

It would be funny if we kept him, purely for the Algerian reaction on social media.

Edited 5 March 2018 by Ted Maul

[Guest Col city fan]

1 hour ago, Redouane said:

What's the point of this thread? How is the up to the fans for him to stay or leave? He's a grown ass man, he can make his own decisions. The fans can't force him to stay or leave

 

[sylofox]

He's made up his mlnd. Good bye and good luck. Except for when you play us.

[Ian Nacho]

Certainly the best player I've seen play for us. I think he should be allowed to move on, far far too good to be at us, capable for playing for most teams in Europe. He should be allowed to play at the world's highest level on a regular basis. 

[Suzie the Fox]

 

[Zevaristi]

If you love Mahrez, set him free, if he comes back 2000 years laters, he's god

[the fox]

22 minutes ago, Ian Nacho said:

Certainly the best player I've seen play for us. I think he should be allowed to move on, far far too good to be at us, capable for playing for most teams in Europe. He should be allowed to play at the world's highest level on a regular basis. 

And that's what kills me! The management could have done better, A lot better! But instead we kept wheeling and dealing instead of getting proper players to compliment him. He's now 27 and doesn't have time to invest his prime years in a project that isn't ambitious and can't wait for gray, diabate, ndidi and maguire to become world beaters.

 

He's in the eyes of most football fans the best player outside the top 6. The only player that can be compared to him when you look at the body of work is hazard and in the last 3 season (including this) he has 1 goal and 10 assists more than the world class hazard.

 

[Dan]

2 hours ago, Redouane said:

What's the point of this thread? How is the up to the fans for him to stay or leave? He's a grown ass man, he can make his own decisions. The fans can't force him to stay or leave

In which case close the whole forum down.

[Stadt]

We can't have him ****ing about any longer trying to manufacture a move - try and sort out a move that meets his value as soon as we can and get the replacement in before he leaves. Sounds far too efficient and sensible for us and it's unlikely to happen but that's the ideal (realistic) scenario in my mind.

[NorthfieldsFox]

Pay him £250k per week ! 

[Legend_in_blue]

He's still a turncoat. 

 

[foxfanazer]

Let him go. Needs to choose his next path carefully as despite how some of us rate him I don’t think he’ll be a regular starter for the very top clubs. Great talent, just needs to sort his head out a bit and find more consistency to hit the highest levels

[foxes21]

Just a thought, if we finish 7th we’ll have Europa qualifiers in the summer won’t we? 

 

Would be tempted to keep him until we’ve secured qualification. Europa qualifiers are always a potential banana skin and we might need some Mahrez magic. 

[fuchsntf]

3 hours ago, Royston. said:

Unless we kidnap his goldfish........

Thats No being very Koi....

[Oxfordfox83]

Go; for the right price.

 

Preferably with three weeks of the window left and two little known wizards already signed up...

[Chico1958]

Swap him for Willian and I'd be happy

 

Or test him with money v ambition   

 

Ps: Money usually wins.

[sly1]

Move on

[The whole world smiles]

4 hours ago, ScouseFox said:

as has been the case for about 3 years since it was obvious that he was too good to play for us, if someone offers something close to what he is worth then he can go and make the most of his career. if clubs keep offering joke amounts then I don't think we should sell him, regardless of how "little he wants to be here". a narky, underperforming mahrez is pretty much still our best player most weeks. 

 

once a good enough offer comes in he gets a hero's send off, he's the best player this club will ever have and fully deserves to play for a top, top team, win leagues and cups and champions leagues year in, year out. 

I agree with this mostly. I think the original poster is trying to boil it down to 2 standpoints but there is a lot more factors to it than that.

[MahrezFan]

5 hours ago, ScouseFox said:

 I don't think we should sell him, regardless of how "little he wants to be here". a narky, underperforming mahrez is pretty much still our best player most weeks. 

 

This is probably what the owner is also thinking. It is very unlikely for him to leave in the summer as It's clear that LCFC is not willing to sell and by now all the other teams know it and won't bother making bids for him. 

[lcfc sheff]

if the fee covers the cost of the new training ground, I think that's fair enough for him to leave, he'll leave on good terms this summer and its perfect for all those involved. it's one step forward two steps back for ourselves, but i'm almost starting to feel sorry for him at this point.

[lcfc sheff]

I don't even want to think about the stats he'd pull up at man city, I pray we let him go abroad.

[fleckneymike]

If the asking price is met he can go with full blessing.

 

Without wishing to sound too much like Danny Murphy, he is now too good for us. I'd love to see just what he is capable of becoming but to do that he needs to play with better 'footballers'. In our current squad I think only Vardy has the same level of football intelligence, the rest either don't read what he is going to do or are incapable of making the runs to receive the ball from him. It has been great to have a player so clearly the equal of anyone the top sides brought here.

 

It'll be sad to see him go but the memories of what he has achieved are unlikely to be repeated. That majestic goal against Blackpool in Championship where you began to realise that he might just be a bit too good for that league to his one man showboat at Reading away where you got the sense that he really wasn't impressed with the standard of opposition defences were hints at what was to come. Our first season in the Pram when it finally clicked (seemingly too late) at Arsenal away where he seemed to take them on for fun before scoring two completely different goals against Southampton during the great escape.