What do you buy for the man who has everything?
It’s a pretty common problem for those seeking birthday presents for well remunerated friends and family (does dad need another monogrammed business card holder? Shall we name a star after Karen again?) and it’s surely been a problem for Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak.
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As the new season approached, Pep Guardiola already had a Bentley, a wardrobe full of lovely V-neck sweaters and approximately £448 million worth of new signings. Instead of buying him his 14th Stone Island jacket, City’s owners looked down Pep’s gift registry and picked out the one thing a Catalan really needs to stay on trend this season: a brand-new Riyad Mahrez.
For City Football Group, a club-record £60m is a small price to pay if it helps ensure dominance on European and domestic fronts.
Mahrez is, without question, a proven elite Premier League talent. The 27-year-old was part of the Leicester team that was promoted to the Premier League in 2014, and instrumental in their incredibly unlikely title win two seasons later. In 179 appearances for the Foxes, the French-born Algerian scored 48 goals and managed 38 assists. In his title-winning annus mirabilis, he was also voted PFA Players’ Player of the Year, PFA Fans’ Player of the Year, Leicester Player of the Year, CAF African Footballer of the Year and BBC African Footballer of the Year. There is very little room on Riyad’s mantle piece.
His dribbling, counterattacking prowess, ability to take players on, and set piece skills have made the 27-year-old one of the most desirable attacking midfielders in the game. And for the past few seasons, he has undoubtedly been the most creative player outside of the Big Six.
The fact that the reigning champions made a move for him—and that they paid over 133 times the $574,000 fee Leicester gave Le Havre for his services—shows his elite status.
The Mahrez transfer is resoundingly positive for Manchester City Football Club. The most prosperous club in England will compete on four fronts, which accounts for up to 63 games (not including any potential domestic cup replays). To play that many games with a high-pressing style will require rotation—and not necessarily just for League Cup games on terrible frozen pitches in cities you need to look up on a map to prove they exist.
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City has 13 midfielders in their squad, with Mahrez, Raheem Sterling, Leroy Sane, Fabian Delph, Bernardo Silva, David Silva, Patrick Roberts, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Phil Foden, and Brahim Díaz all available as potential wide options.
In a modern game where it seems essential to utilize wingers who can run at defenses with the ball, City has a plethora of choice. And thus far in 2018-19, Mahrez appears to rank highly in Pep’s winger power rankings: he started all three International Champions Cup friendlies, the Community Shield, and the first league game. In other words, he has a 100% start rate so far.
When speaking to City’s official site upon making his club-record move, Mahrez suggested confidence in holding a key role.
“I wanted to work under [Pep] and to play in this club,” he said. “I didn’t hesitate at all. He wanted me.”
Clearly, the Algerian is a valuable addition to the squad and he has the belief that he can stay at the forefront of his manager’s mind.
And although he offers no direct replacement for any member of the squad, he certainly offers the manager a greater tactical flexibility—particularly in the coming weeks, and perhaps months, when Kevin De Bruyne is out of action.
Mahrez could be used, for example, as a replacement for Sane on the left wing, with the right-footed Sterling hugging the opposite touchline. If Pep chooses to invert the wingers, as he did in the Premier League opener against Arsenal, Mahrez can cut in from the right, with Sterling mirroring his actions on the opposite flank.
Guardiola tends not to like starting wingers who are dominant with the same foot, but he showed in the Community Shield, with Sane on the left and Mahrez on the right, that this is also a viable option. In these systems, it’s also possible that Sterling is played through the middle or Bernardo Silva gets to operate in the No. 10 role in which he thrives.
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These myriad formation possibilities are music to the ears of City fans the world over—but the club’s gain is likely to be Riyad Mahrez’s loss.
In moving to a bigger club, Mahrez has taken a huge risk. Essentially, he’s gone from being a koi in a goldfish bowl to a goldfish in a pond.
He has played no fewer than 39 games in each of the last three seasons—a number he is highly unlikely to reach with his new club.
And while Mahrez has started five out of five games, it’s worth noting that only one of them was competitive. In that game, he was substituted on the hour mark and Bernardo moved into his position on the right wing. Within four minutes, the Portuguese scored City’s second goal.
It’s quite possible that Mahrez has been earning so many early starts because Pep is giving some of his World Cup stars more of a break. This argument, of course, doesn’t hold for Leroy Sane—the player most likely to be threatened by Mahrez’s arrival—but it seems difficult to believe that Guardiola will abandon the 22-year-old, who offers something the former Leicester man apparently lacks: pace.
During the Arsenal game, it was clear that Mahrez was slowing down City’s rapid-fire attacks. In certain positions, one got the impression that Sane would have been quicker, more direct, more likely to take his man on, and perhaps more likely to deliver a better final ball.
(Additionally, it should be noted that last season, per WhoScored, Sane averaged one extra dribble per game than Mahrez, and had a 5.8% superior pass completion rate.)
With so many other wide midfielders competing for his position, it seems inevitable that Mahrez’s time on the field will be dramatically reduced.
So, is the move to City entirely bad news for Mahrez? Probably not. He will likely end up with a Premier League winners’ medal, he can text Pep whenever he wants, and he will get a very good idea of how the bench at the Camp Nou feels. Plus his move is far less cynical than that of his former teammate Danny Drinkwater, who appeared to trade in his gun and badge for a bigger paycheck and a few League Cup starts.
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But Mahrez is a player who is used to playing every minute and taking a starring role. He is far from the brightest star in the City galaxy and rotation will surely signal fewer playing opportunities, and in turn, less match fitness.
Even if Mahrez proves his worth in Pep’s system, it is inevitable that he will now spend a large proportion of his time sitting on the sidelines in a race car seat, arms folded, thinking about the time when fans would sing his name, week-in, week-out.
Mahrez is used to the spotlight. Now, he’s in danger of becoming another Stone Island jacket in Pep’s overcrowded wardrobe.
(Photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)