Is Riyad Mahrez the best Leicester City player of all time?
On initial impressions, Leicester City finally seem to have found a short-term replacement for Riyad Mahrez on the right wing. So is Tete replacing the best Fox of all time?
Yes
Helen Thompson
I'm not sure I'm objective when it comes to Riyad Mahrez.
I've made my peace with that. I would understand arguments for other players like Jamie Vardy, Muzzy Izzet or players from earlier years, but in my lifetime there has only been one Riyad Mahrez at Leicester City.
For me, it has to be somebody from our 5000/1 title winning team and he is the standout. Considering he cost less than £500,000, it adds to the legend. He's also irreplaceable based on the seasons we've endured since his departure and dare I say it, we have never really been as fun to watch since he left.
This question allowed me to indulge and go on a video watching spree. It was beautiful; I will never, ever forget his goal at Manchester City away. I hadn't believed until that, had not allowed myself to dare to dream. I have been in chaotic away celebrations but that one still stands out.
Looking back over my tweets that mention Riyad and other bits of writing I did during his time at the club and much like watching him on his day, writing about him was, and still is, just an absolute joy.
You don't get to see players like him every week when you support Leicester City and it was a privilege. He did things I used to have to witness other players of great clubs doing to us. You just always felt that he could conjure something out of thin air and change our fortunes. He inspired us countless times.
Perhaps I'm too content to look back on Riyad's time with rose tinted glasses. It wasn't always perfect, he had some early learning to do and some growing up, his penalties were…interesting and he didn’t really bother with the defensive side of the game.
Many didn't love the way he left. But then I consider how it felt to see him perform his first touch wizardry, moments like destroying and humiliating numerous Aston Villa players in one move and some of the goals he scored. When you look at it that way, we can only count ourselves lucky to have seen him play in Leicester blue for four seasons.
For technical prowess, few compare. I'm surprised we never had officials checking for magnets or illegal tech in his boots, such was his ball control and dribbling skill.
I could wax lyrical about his first touch and still never do it justice. You can keep your Messi and Ronaldo, I've seen them all live and Riyad's first touch is impeccable.
The fact he so often followed a killer dead ball with a mazy, devastating run was such a delight to watch. He has essentially ruined other footballers for me because so few can match how easy he makes it look. His unpredictability made him such a dangerous asset for us. How often did we see clubs employ various tactics and they never really worked.
On his day, he was our unstoppable, creative force. The goal against Chelsea that we still show pre-match has never got old to me.
Watching Riyad Mahrez was so often watching with a huge grin on your face. Like being an eight year old at my first match all over again. We love football because of players that make us feel like that.
The fact that he contributed to such a ridiculous period of our history and some of the absolutely ridiculous goals he scored - I'll always love him for that, our little magician.
No
James Knight
It’s hard to love someone who doesn’t love you back. Describing a player who went on strike to force a move as your best ever player is like getting a tattoo of an ex. After they’ve already left.
For all his greatness, Mahrez’s flakiness and cowardice in leaving and his subsequent career of occasional cameos in Manchester City’s title processions makes it feel undignified to proclaim him our greatest ever.
At its heart, deciding your best player is a purely footballing question. But it goes far deeper than that. Mahrez has spent most of the last five years being booed on his return to the club. He’s shown no particular love for Leicester since he left. Many people now probably associate him more with blazing penalties over the bar in sky blue at Anfield than they do waltzing through defences in royal blue.
The obvious, and correct, choice as our best player ever is another member of the 2016 team. Someone who has defined the team for a decade. Who stayed to be part of another half decade of success. Who has scored a century of Premier League goals for Leicester since the title win. It’s………….Jamie Vardy’s account.
Vardy and Leicester are completely synonymous. Not only is the title win impossible without him, but it’s hard to imagine two top four challenges and an FA Cup win without him either. We virtually retired Mahrez’s position in the team for five years and stilll managed to win plenty of games. This season, as Vardy has finally started to hit the wall, we’ve barely won any.
He’s third on the all-time goalscorers list. He’ll never catch the two players above him, but he is the honorary leader. The others scored their goals in black and white, against fussball keepers shuttling along the line helplessly as balls rained in around them. Vardy has been banging them in at the highest level for years. Routinely raising his game against the best teams.
Yet the numbers don’t even begin to tell the story of his greatness. Mahrez might win on style points, but Vardy is a force of nature. Just by existing, peak Vardy sent panic coursing through the veins of defenders. His presence alone meant you always had a chance, that all you needed to do was get the ball into the opposition half. Perennially underrated as a finisher, he’s scored all types of goal for years. Pure pace, lobs, instinctive finishes, backheels, 30 yard screamers.
And that still doesn’t quite give you the full picture. It’s the full package that makes him the best. Flapping like an Eagle at Palace, running over to the same corner of the Hawthorns year after year, pointing to the golden Premier League badge at White Hart Lane. Every ounce of swaggering self-confidence in the great Leicester teams of the past decade came from the same source: the number 9.
One day, perhaps when they open the shimmering new, 40,000 seater stadium in a few years, they’ll build a second statue outside it. And it won’t be of Riyad Mahrez.
