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The Premier League, as is often the case, was a little heavier today, after a successful and yet pragmatic club sold its most valuable player to a club. Elite team who did not really need him. Riyad Mahrez-Leicester City's best accomplice, Jamie Vardy, left the club where he became a legend helping his team to have the best season of all sports. Manchester City, already giant of England and soon of Europe too, has acquired in a transfer of £ 60 million.
This is exaggerated, obviously. While the Champions League trophy escaped City thanks to the work of Mo Salah and Liverpool, it was still a perfect Premier League team in 2017-18, one of the best the best of all time. And even if there is room for improvement, it's certainly not in the opponent's half of the field, where any increased firepower in training runs up against the law of diminishing returns. . The top five creative and attacking players on Manchester City last season could have included a combination of Sergio Aguero, David Silva, Gabriel Jesus, Bernardo Silva, Leroy Sane, Raheem Sterling, Kevin De Bruyne, and İlkay Gündoğan.
Mahrez, the PFA player of the year in 2016, is he even good enough to beat at least three of these guys on a regular basis? May be! David Silva, in particular, is closer to the end of his career than the beginning, and often plays in the privileged position of Mahrez to the right of the attacker. But Sané, Sterling and Bernardo Silva are all comfortable here, younger than Mahrez, and have more experience playing for manager Pep Guardiola. Mahrez is a brilliant smuggler, but he's no better than Kevin De Bruyne. It is a major threat to score, but no more than three at least more specialized attackers in the city. He still has a lot of seasons to offer at age 27, but his best was almost safe in 2015-16. In the long term perspective of this club, Mahrez is nothing more than an emergency dressing.
However, it is difficult to really blame anyone involved in this movement. Long before the transfer became official, Mahrez did not hide his desire to leave Leicester, and he was perfect for him – having achieved everything he could have dreamed of with his former club – to have more visibility, a chance to prove more, and the possibility of the first prize of Europe.
Leicester, for its part, has sold out extraordinarily high on a guy pulled out of the French second division in 2014. And smartly reinvesting money from these kinds of massive transfers – rather than retaining players keys against their will – is how "best of the others" clubs develop in their own way. Manchester City, meanwhile, is still stuck with the pressure to grow despite their success. Even if City has already reached dizzying heights in the national competition, it is not yet Barcelona or Real Madrid or even Bayern Munich, and if the addition of Mahrez does not change anything to this reality, it do not make them worse. And since money is not an object for this team, they might as well go for it.
Yet all of this is depressing, a very talented star leaving the club where he is immortal to be a special little support player on an already established juggernaut. The potential role of Mahrez in Manchester City could echo something like James Rodriguez in Madrid – an undeniable talent that is also completely redundant about his team's alignment. But even though he finds some solid playing time and makes important contributions to his new team, the final break from a Leicester core that shocked and delighted the world just a few years ago is a sad thing. With the rise of Manchester City and the continued dominance of one or two clubs in all other major leagues in Europe, the idea of a middle class team making an incredibly weak race seems already to be such a weak memory.
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