Riyad Mahrez is a Leicester legend, not doubt about it. He had a wish to leave and make the most out of his career. Joining Man City was probably the best that could have happened to him. For a player that had fled a St Mirren trial on a bike due to ‘abusive’ Scottish weather, life was not quite so glorious for the Leicester PFA Player of the Year and Premier League winner, before his move to England.
Riyad Mahrez enjoyed a sensational 2015-16 season, with his 17 goals and 11 assists, inspiring his side to Premier League glory and earning the prestigious PFA Player of the Year award. When joining Leicester from Le Havre in January 2014, he was close to 23 years old, making his league debut later in the month vs. Middlesbrough.
The fee Leicester paid was around £400,000. He played 19 league games and scored 3 goals, helping Leicester to a return to Premier League for the first time in 10 years, winning the Championsihip with 102 points. Mahrez made his Premier League debut on 16 August 2014, and scored his first goal in the division on 4 October 2014 in a 2–2 draw with Burnley. Mahrez was part of the Leicester team that won seven of its final nine matches of the season to avoid relegation to the Football League. He scored both goals in a 2–0 defeat of Southampton on 9 May and ended the season with four goals and three assists from 30 appearances.
He signed a new four-year contract with Leicester in August 2015. On 8 August 2015, Mahrez scored two goals in the season opener against Sunderland in a 4–2 home win. He was later described as the club’s “match winner” by captain Wes Morgan, following “superb form” which saw him score four goals in the first three games of the season.
After scoring four goals in the opening four games of the 2015–16 season, Mahrez was nominated for the Premier League Player of the Month award. By 3 November 2015, he had scored seven goals in 10 Premier League games.[29] On 5 December, Mahrez scored a hat-trick as Leicester defeated Swansea City 3–0 to go top of the Premier League, putting him on ten league goals for the season and making him the first Algerian to score a Premier League hat-trick. Mahrez and his midfield partners Marc Albrighton, N’Golo Kanté and Danny Drinkwater received plaudits for their part in Leicester’s early season run of form, and manager Claudio Ranieri described Mahrez and forward Jamie Vardy as “priceless” ahead of the January transfer window.
In January 2016 Mahrez’s transfer value was said to have risen from £4.5 million to £30.1 million, ranking him among the top 50 most valuable players in Europe. In the same year, Mahrez’s popularity in his homeland led Leicester to have over almost three times as many Facebook fans in Algeria than in the UK. The barbershop in Sarcelles that he frequented from his childhood became a destination for fans from as far as Belgium, desiring the same haircut. Mahrez was one of four Leicester players named in the PFA Team of the Year in April 2016, and later that month he won the PFA Players’ Player of the Year award. He was the first African to earn the accolade. When Leicester finished the season as champions, Mahrez became the first Algerian to win a Premier League medal.
The chase for the best Leicester players started just hours after the season finished and looking in the back mirror you can not blame a guy who had fled St. Mirren to be eager to get to his next step in the game, and it all turned a bit against him, being held back by Leicester, holding on to their player that just had signed a four year contract.
He was finally sold on 10th of July 2018, joining Man City for a fee of £60million. His total tally at Leicester was in all 158 league games, scoring 42 goals. His grand total of competitive games was 179 and 48 goals. Moving to Man City gave him the opportunity to work under one of the best managers in the game, Pep Guardiola, and he never looked back, winning every trophy possible while at The Etihad. Adding 4 more PL titles to take his total to 5. 2 FA Cup winner medals, 3 Carabao Cup titles and finally in his last season also a Champions League winner.
A move to Al-Ahli last summer at the age of 33, will probably see him finishing his career in that environment, and at 93 caps for his nation Algeria at this point he will probably reach the magic tally of 100 in a short while, still being available for selection. At international level his best achievement is winning AFCON with Algeria in 2019.
FACTFILE:
- Full Name: Riyad Karim Mahrez
- Position: Winger
- Date of Birth: 21.02.1991
- Birthplace: Sarcelles, France
- Nation: Algeria
- Caps / Goals: 93/31
- Major League Career:
- 2011-14, Le Havre (60/6)
- 2014-18, Leicester City (158/42)
- 2018-23, Man City (145/43)
- 2023 ->, Al-Ahli (32/11)
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