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    Kudos to Mahrez

    With so many premier league players sitting out games this weekend as they try to engineer a move away, Gylfi, Barkley, van Djik, Sanchez and Coutinho come to mind, I noticed that Mahrez actually played on Friday despite saying he wants to leave.

    This silly season has been even worse than previous ones and with Dembele now suspended by Dortmund as he engineers a move to Barcelona it's not just limited to England.

    #2
    Mbappé isn't starting for Monaco

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      #3
      He played well, as well. It wasn't just Leicester proving a point by picking him. However it does appear that the sorts of clubs he wants to move to are feeling a bit lairy about the valuation that Leicester are insisting upon, so actually showing up and demonstrating his abilities is probably his best way of engineering a move. Coutinho etc are apparently not available for any price, so they need a different strategy to make their moves happen.

      Any extra games Mahrez plays for Leicester are bonuses. You would think somebody (Chelsea?) will eventually stump up, now that it's clear that Leicester's price is simply not negotiable. I'm crossing my fingers that he will still be there next Saturday as I've got tickets for the Brighton game.

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        #4
        Still at Leicester. And it's even more pressing for him to play well now to make potential buyers reconsider, as the one club that had bid have given up and moved on.

        The chances of Coutinho and van Dijk appearing for their clubs this weekend seem rather slimmer.
        Last edited by Janik; 19-08-2017, 08:26.

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          #5
          I feel for Mahrez a little. He could have gone last summer and the rumours at the time were that genuinely big clubs were interested in him. He agreed to stay for an extra year and played well, as far as I'm concerned. Not anything like as well as he did in our title winning season, but that can be said for every one of our players. He certainly didn't play anywhere close to as badly as some Leicester fans would have you believe.

          Hitting former heights would have been difficult enough anyway, but for much of the season he was playing in a side which was performing badly and for a coach whom had, sadly and inexplicably, adopted negative tactics in pursuit of which the ball often bypassed him even in his advanced midfield position. He also had more games to play and was being marked more closely, by more men. He finished 7th in the Ballon d'Or. He is heavily criticised by Leicester supporters but I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that we'll never see his like again here.

          One of the blokes I sit near and I will doubtless have that very conversation again this afternoon. We'll be fearing that this will be the last time we see him. Plenty of others will spend the game calling him lazy and uncommitted. It's a great shame. A number of our players deserve criticism for their lack of application and their poor performances ahead of Ranieri's sacking last season (I favoured a summer clearout) but I never believed that Mahrez was one of them.

          His act of loyalty a year ago - okay, he got a big contract out of it, but it was hardly undeserved and many players in his position wouldn't have acquiesced even for that - has probably cost him his one real opportunity to play for one of the giant clubs. I hope I'm wrong. As much as I want to watch him play for Leicester forever the bloke doesn't owe us a thing. I don't begrudge him seeking to achieve the dream of most footballers in playing for a successful club.
          Last edited by Corieltauvian; 19-08-2017, 12:53.

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            #6
            That's a great post, Corieltauvian, and welcome.

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              #7
              Seconded. Welcome indeed, Corieltauvian. What's your favourite biscuit?

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                #8
                I co-sign every word of that. That season, it was like having Zola or Le Tissier. We had a player who did things wonderful enough that opposing fans might applaud. The surgical goal against West Ham; Schmeichel got the ball, Mahrez is on the halfway line, I think "goal, incoming, five seconds" - sure enough he gets it, dwells on it like Andrea Pirlo, then sends the perfect ball for Vardy to nip clear and finish. I love him. And I also love that our player is the first Muslim POTY, that's a satisfying fact.

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by Corieltauvian View Post
                  He could have gone last summer and the rumours at the time were that genuinely big clubs were interested in him.

                  His act of loyalty a year ago - okay, he got a big contract out of it, but it was hardly undeserved and many players in his position wouldn't have acquiesced even for that - has probably cost him his one real opportunity to play for one of the giant clubs. I hope I'm wrong. As much as I want to watch him play for Leicester forever the bloke doesn't owe us a thing. I don't begrudge him seeking to achieve the dream of most footballers in playing for a successful club.
                  After Mahrez had signed the new contract, I ended up wondering how true those rumours were. Most seem to originate from Algeria or France, which are where his agents are based. It was almost like someone was trying to create a situation which gave them leverage in a contract negotiation in which they otherwise had little (there being years to run on a release-clause-less contract). People suggested that Wenger was giving knowing smiles when he talked about Mahrez in press conferences. I think they were more bemused, that if the current Footballer of the Year was about to be thrown at him then he was hardly going to say 'no' or indeed anything that might stop that happening, but it was not something he was ever actively pursuing.

                  I also wonder if Mahrez himself had any particular desire to leave last year, and indeed wonder whether he is a bit conflicted by that even now. The main people who stand to gain if he does move are, against, his representatives. It must be frustrating for them - they have discovered themselves with a superstar on their hands. And yet the biggest transfer of his career, or which they get their cut, is a (decent) fraction of a million quid. It is logical for him to move, of course. He is capable of performing a regular role for a regular Champions League side. So he probably wants it, but he doesn't give much impression that he is particularly unhappy with being a Leicester player until this materialists.

                  And anyone who suggests that Mahrez owes Leicester anything is clearly nuts. Since joining he has played a regular role in a side that got promoted from the Championship and a side that retained their premier league place. He then up that to performing a starring role in a side that won the league(!) and then again featured majorly in the same subsequently reaching the Champions League quarter-finals. In pure financial terms that is something like a quarter of a billions pounds extra brought into the club, of which a substantial fraction can be attributed to Riyad. And that is before considering that, if he does go, Leicester will have turned enough of a transfer profit on him to more than cover all the wages they have ever paid him. And then there is the emotional/historical aspect, of course - he was the PFA player of the season in a year where Leicester achieved something that was beyond the realms of possibility. A season which is almost certain to stand as the greatest in the history of the club by a distance. If he stayed and the club for the remainder of his current contract without ever breaking into even a mild trot he would still be miles in credit.

                  He was good today, in a slightly odd match.
                  Last edited by Janik; 19-08-2017, 19:06.

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                    #10
                    Danny Murphy on MOTD said he should be playing on a bigger stage. With all the silly money flying around he'd surely have been a better but than others that have gone for 40 plus.

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