Leicester City winger Riyad Mahrez is said to be furious with the club’s owners as they ruined a dream move to Manchester City by demanding an exorbitant fee for the Algerian, reports The Sun.
With Leroy Sane out of action for seven weeks, Pep Guardiola had identified Mahrez as the man to replace him, and the club made a record bid of £65 million plus a player to Leicester for the 26-year old. However, Leicester’s Thai owners rejected the offer, holding out for £95 million instead.
Mahrez submitted a transfer request to try to force through the move but, by that time, City had withdrawn their offer. The former PFA player of the year did not travel with the team to Everton on Wednesday night where they lost 2 -1, and missed training the day before.
Now it looks like there may be problems trying to reintegrate Mahrez back into the Leicester team, with the player feeling double standards may have been applied in his case. N’Golo Kante and Danny Drinkwater from the successful Premier League winning side were allowed to leave for Chelsea, but Mahrez has seen successive transfer requests turned down by the club.
Andy is an exiled English football fan living in Cyprus. He loves all sports but football is his abiding passion, and he still has dreams every now and then about scoring the winning goal in a Wembley Cup Final, even though his playing days are long gone. He follows most major leagues, across Europe at least, and has a favoured team in each. When he’s not watching, listening, reading or downloading podcasts about football, he spend his time worrying about his beloved Arsenal.