First it was Jamie Vardy, now the Arsenal reportedly have their sights set on another of Leicester City’s title-winning heroes: Riyad Mahrez.
It’s looking like the aforementioned talismanic striker has opted to remain a Fox as Leicester make their first ever foray into Champions League football next season.
But rumours about the PFA Player of the Year’s next destination persist, with a few unconfirmed reports from France at the back end of last week suggesting that the Algerian ace had agreed a deal to move to the Emirates.
Leicester are unsurprisingly doing everything they can to quash the media chatter before it enters dreaded ‘saga’ status. Mahrez started a pre-season friendly against Celtic last night and even got himself on the scoresheet with a typically sensational individual goal. No question his commitment, is there?
Claudio Ranieri also remained insistent that his star man is going nowhere in a press conference after the game. As reported by The Independent, the Italian said that while the rumours are great for journalists, they’re of no use to him as he prepares the Champions for another exciting campaign.
“It is good because you can continue to write, write, write,” he told the press at Celtic Park.
“It is good for you but not for us. Did you see Riyad, how he is happy? He played well and worked so hard for the team and scored a good goal. Then he stays with us. Of course.
“For us it is very important because he is one of our stars. He is our fantasy. We can work hard but with him something change.”
There’s at least one Arsenal fan, however, who is so confident that Mahrez is on his way to North London that he’s already had his name printed on the back of his shirt.
Asad Balal clearly hasn’t been too badly burned by the endless list of his club’s big-name transfers that have fallen through – or failed to take off in the first place – in the past, and captioned the tweet that pictured him in his new kit: “Mahrez to Arsenal is done ..He will wear the number 26 number … This is how confident I am.”
https://twitter.com/AsadBalal/status/756870240491958272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Anyone else get the feeling we’ve seen this before?
